THE APOCALYPTIC DISPENSATION. 



TEN LECTURES 

ON THK 

BOOK OF REVELATION. 



BT 

WILLIAM B. HAYDEN. 

A MINISTER OF THE NEW JEKUSALEM CHURCH. 



BOSTON : T. H. CARTER & CO. 
CHICAGO: E. B. MEYEES & CHAOT)LER. 
1 8 6 5. 



t 



Entered according to Act of Confess, !n the year 1865, by 

T. H. CAKTER & COMPANY, 
In the Clcrk'g Office of tbe District Court of Massachusetts. 



Stereotyped and Printed by 
J. E. Parwell and Co MP Airy, 
87 CongrcM Stroet. 



To the members of the Society and Parish of the 
Kew Jerusalem Church in Portland, Maine, endeared to the 
author by a multitude of kindly attentions during a pastoral 
connection of fifteen years, this volume is affectionately 
inscribed. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE 1. 

On the Character of Plenarily Inspired Sacred 
Scripture 

LECTURE II. 

On the true Method of interpreting Plenarilt 
Inspired Sacred Scripture 

LECTURE IIL 

On The Second Coming of the Lord, and the First 
Three Chapters of Revelation . . . * 

LECTURE IV. 

Summary View of the Contents op the whole Book 
of Revelation : Chapter IV. . . . . 

LECTURE V. 

The Opening of the Book sealed with Seven Seals, 
AND the Sealing of the Twelve Tribes : Chap- 
ters V. VL AND VII 



6 



CONTEKTS. 



LECTURE VI. 
The Eike of the Golden Censer, and the Sounding 

OF THE Seven Trumpets: Chapters VIII. and IX. lis 

LECTURE VII. 
The Little Book in the Angels' Hand; and the Tes- 
timony OP THE Two Witnesses : Chapters X. XI. 137 

LECTURE VIII. 
The New Church in the Spiritual World; the New 
Heaven and the Seven Last Plagues : Chapters 
XII. to XVIII. 

INCLUSIVE . 1 t-n 

LECTURE IX. 
The Inauguration of the Apocalyptic Dispensation; 
THE Closing Scenes of the Judgment of the 
Peoples out of Christendom, or the Gentiles : 
Chapters XIX. and XX. . . 

• . Ic5i 

LECTURE X. 
Descent of the New Jerusalem, and Formation of 



the Latter-day Church: Chapters XXI. and 

XXII 

205 

APPENDIX OF NOTES . . oor 



LECTURE I. 



mXEODUCTORY. 

CONTENTS: — Character of Sacred Scriptures; 
Reasons for believing the Bible a truly DmNE 
Book — the Word of God to Men; The Divine Lan- 
guage, AND Style of Writing ; Nature of Inspira- 
tion — wherein it consists; How ''the Word *^ was 
given to the Prophets ; A Spiritual Sense through- 
out EVERY Part ; Explanation of the remarkable 
Vision in the first Chapter of Ezekiel ; Why the 
First Tables of the Law were broken. 



LECTURE. 



<• For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels." - 
HzeJc. i. 20. 

OuK theme tbis evening is the Sacred Scripture. Its 
bearing on the general subject we have in prospect is 
obvious. For as we come to a right apprehension ot 
the character of the whole, the better shall we be pre- 
pared to understand correctly that particular portion 
which will be our more especial study. 

The importance, too, of the subject will be readily 
seen and admitted. For the Scripture is the founda- 
tion of all our beliefs in spiritual things, the fountain 
out of which we draw the very life-blood of our 
religion. The church is built upon the Bible, and the 
character she attributes to it, and the manner in which 
she interprets it, will determine her own character, — 
the amount and quality of her inner life. 

It is the great question of the time, this concermng 
the Holy Writings, their canonicity, their authority, 
their inspiration. How much there is now written on 
the subject, and how many different solutions do we 
hear of the several problems 1 What is inspiration / 
and where is it? What opposite theories 1 Andhov. 
little meaning is the word sometimes made to carry I 
But over and above, and behind all the controversies 
of the day, there is the profound spirit of inquiry still 



10 



LECTUEE I. 



unsatisfied ; the rational mind seeking for some definite 
thought in which to rest, while the awakened Christian 
heart longs for a clearer view of those deeper mys- 
teries of meaning which it feels are wrapped up in the 
pregnant sentences of this cherished Volume 

We believe the Bible to be a truly Divine Book, an 
Inspired Writing, -a communication from the Most 
High, -the Word of God to man. And we use these 
phrases in their fullest sense, without the purpose of 
givmg them an interpretation which shall in efi-ect 
vacate or dilute their meaning. We believe that some- 
thing of this Word was given to man at the beginning 
(at first oral, afterwards written,) as his instructor 
and guide; that the world has never been without 
portions of it, somewhere preserved, and that it has 
been providentially kept and added to, as circum- 
stances required, as a central influence in the develoD- 
ment of the world's history. 

_ The contents of the Word are direct communica- 
tions from the Lord. Jehovah came, and through an 
angel talked with Moses face to face, as a man talketh 
with his friend. He communicated to him the very 
words of the Law, in its entire length, by a living 
voice, on Mt. Sinai. So He communicated all the 
days of Moses and all the days of Joshua ; so He 
communicated with the prophets. The Ten Command- 
ments were written by Himself on the two tables of 
stone ; " and the tables were the work of God, and the 
writmg was the writing of God, graven upon the 
tables. Again, we read that " Moses wrote all the 
words of Jehovah ; " while in the Psalm it is affirmed 
that "Jehovah gave the word: great was the com- 
pany of those that published it." 



WHAT THE ^«W0RD" IS. 



11 



Thus came the book which we now call, and rev- 
erence as, the Word of God, 

What? (some one may say) the Infinite make a 
book ! — the Almighty, Ineffable, Unapproachable 
Spirit, — the great Being of beings, whom the thought 
of man cannot reach up to, nor the understanding 
grasp, — shall He condescend to fashion pieces of 
stone ? Will He stoop to be an imitator of man's art 
in composing the words of a book ? 

Why not? The Infinite Mind is every day and 
moment engaged in processes far more minute and 
intricate, by the million, on every side of us. Did 
you ever behold a table of stone that was not made 
and fashioned by him ? Then, as to writing a book, 
or causing one to be written, the wisdom, the thought, 
and even the very expressions of which shall come 
from Him, so that we can truly say of it, this is the 
Divine Book, God is its Author, — what improbable in 
that ? If man can be an author, then why not He 
who made man ? It is Mind speaking to mind. And 
as the Psalm asks, He who formed the eye, shall He 
not see ? He that planted the ear, shall He not 
hear ? _ so we ask of all the other human faculties, 
shall not He who form.ed them all, exercise them all ? and 
that, too, in infinite degree. That He possesses the 
power of communicating His thought by written lan- 
guage none can doubt. What more probable, then, 
than that He will exercise this power for the good of 
His creatures ? 

Man is the imitator of his Maker ; he is created in 
the Divine image and likeness, and possesses no single 
faculty or mental feature but is in some way a faint 
reflection of a Divine faculty to which it corresponds. 



12 



LECTUKE I. 



Man IS a thinker because his Maker is a thinker. And 
so he is an author or writer because his Maker is an 
author and writer. The Divine Book is the first book, 
and all human books are imitations. The revelation 
of truth from above was the precursor and stimulator 
of human thought. And the Word, written by Divine 
command, for preservation, was the grand archetype 
and suggester of all other books.* 

The truth is that the human mind desires light on 
the higher class of subjects. It looks into itself in 
vain for replies to the souPs great questions. Men 
everywhere distrust themselves and confess their own 
ignorance. The heart yearns for an infallible foundar 
tion on which to rest in peace, and the intellect longs 
for the rule of an infallible guide; something that 
shall speak to it out of the invisible and unknown, 
telling it, with authority, of unknown and invisible 
things. Thus does humanity grope for the Eock of 
Ages, and is not satisfied until it finds it. These words 
of the Psalm express a feeling latent in the heart of 
universal man : ''As the hart p ante th for the water- 
brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, God. My 
soul thirsteth for God, for the living God ; when shall 
I come and appear before God.^^ Here is the want, 
and the revealed word of God is the supply. '' When 
I found thy words, I did eat them, and they were the 
joy and rejoicing of my heart. 

As children in a family naturally run to the father 
for guidance in perplexity, and for an explanation of 
things not understood, so the great family of man as 

* We believe of course in a Holy Book or Books before the 
time of Moses. 



WHAT THE WORD " IS. 



13 



naturally and normally looks up to the heavenly 
Father for guidance in the day of trouble, and for a 
definite solution of the great problems of spiritual 
thought. And when God speaks, or they believe He 
speaks, men will listen, but not otherwise. The Divine 
Voice, coming through the darkness, they will rever- 
ence and obey, but no other. None other whatever 
could penetrate the conscience, awaken the spiritual 
life, command the obedience, or renew the hearts of 
men. 

Look at it from one other point, — the end or Divine 
purpose for which men are created. As it is expressed 
in the writings of the church, this end is that there 
may be a heaven out of the human race.'' This, then, 
is the object of all this world. This is the seminary 
where all this training and preparation are to go on. 
For this cause the Creator has built up this great 
material universe, by processes millions of years long, 
filling it with every conceivable form of useful instru- 
mentality, and covering it at last with multitudes of* 
people, who, as the years roll by, rise into being, open 
their minds and hearts to the varied thought and feel- 
ing of life, develop their characters, and then pass 
forward to their final state. This world being all the 
while the grand seminary, the divinely constructed 
and appointed schoolhouse, where they were to learn 
the great truths of being, — the nature and attributes 
of God, their own relations to Him, their duties here 
and hereafter, the orderly laws of their own souls' 
growth, the infallible rules of justice and virtue, and 
their own immortal destiny, — that so, they might 
attain to the divine end of their creation, and by 
2 



14 



LECTURE T. 



giving heed to holy instructions, be prepared to live 
in heaven, in the presence of the Lord, forever. 

Would the Lord, after having fitted up the Seminary 
on so grand a scale, have omitted the most important 
instrument of all, — a Book, or a series of Books, out 
of which the necessary truths could be learned ? A 
written work, a repository of the knowledge to be 
gained, is an indispensable condition to the attainment 
of the object in view. Is it probable, therefore, or 
even credible, that after having done so much, the 
Lord should fail to provide an adequate and appropri- 
ate Book ? No, my friends, a world without a Bible 
would be as great an anomaly, and as little conform- 
able to reason, as a college or high school with no 
library, maps, charts, or books of instruction. The 
central instrumentality of the whole scheme would be 
wanting. 

Here, then, we stand, with the Word of God authen- 
ticated to the reason, attested by every antecedent 
probability that can be rationally urged, and confirmed 
by the constant presence of such a Book, as an actu- 
ally existing, long-established, and successive histor- 
ical fact. The simple chronology of its authorship, 
spanning the ages, stretching through a long series 
of individual prophets, of different eras, and peoples, 
and tongues, for four or five thousand years, yet pre- 
serving through all a compact unity of purpose and 
plan, of precept and doctrine, transcending, as it does, 
all human ability, goes very far in attesting its Divine 
origin. 

Next, then, as to the character of this Book, coming 
thus from God, and addressed to man. We believe it 
to be imbued with the qualities of the Divine Mind, 



WHAT THE <<W0KD" IS. 



15 



and to be as different from a merely human book as 
any other Divine work has points of essential differ- 
ence from anything man can do. 

Many aver that the Scripture is to be searched like 
any human composition ; that it is to be treated pre- 
cisely like any other book, and its whole meaning 
ascertained in the same way, — from the plain gram- 
matical sense. If the Bible were precisely like all 
other books, this rule would hold good ; but inasmuch 
as in some most important respects it is wholly unlike 
any other composition that ever existed, it is essen- 
tially an erroneous maxim of interpretation, and can 
never bring forth the truth out of the sacred volume. 
The common import of the letter is to be understood 
in that way, but the deeper meaning concealed within, 
the spirity which gives life to the letter, and in which 
resides the heavenly quality of the writing, cannot 
be reached or evolved by that process. 

As we have seen, it is a Divine composition ; some- 
thing extraordinary, something entirely aside from and 
beyond every work of human art. It is not simple, as 
many affirm ; it is the most wonderful and complex 
production in the universe, corresponding to the 
Infinite Mind that produced it. It is the Maker 
speaking to his creatures, — ■ the language of God in 
the language of men.^' And while it has therefore 
an external, human element by which it is related to 
the outward world and the natural ajjprehension, it 
has also an internal. Divine element, looking upward 
towards God and heaven. Divine love and Divine 
wisdom have filled its pages full of meaning, so full 
that men cannot fathom it all, it will be the study and 
the wonder and the source of light to angels and the 
spirits of the Just forever. 



16 



LECTURE I. 



It was written for a spiritual purpose, — with a 
spiritual end in view, to accomplish spiritual results, 
and has a spiritual sense or meaning running through 
every portion of it, parallel to, and yet distinct and dis- 
tinguishable from the letter. It is in the spiritual sense 
or meaning that its essential qualities reside, that is 
the sense which constitutes the heavenly glory of the 
Word, — the sense which evolves the most wonderful 
things of wisdom to the thought, — and the sense 
which is open to the understanding of the angels. 
Could the Divine Mind speak, uttering its thought, 
without speaking what would be wisdom for angels as 
well as for men ? 

As just quoted, it is "the language of God in the 
language of men,^' a twofold book for a twofold 
being, unfolding continually new and higher meaning 
as the understanding is opened to perceive it. As 
man has two natures, one relating him to the outward 
world and to common affairs, the other relating him to 
God and heaven and eternal life^ so the Bible is given 
with two parallel lines of thought, one for the natural 
mind, to arrest, instruct, and lift it up, the other for 
the spiritual mind, to enlighten, to feed and nourish it 
in the elements of eternal life. 

This complex nature of the Divine Word is strictly 
conformable to all we know of the Creator's opera- 
tions everywhere. They are complex while man's are 
simple. Man's operations are confined to the surface 
of a thing ; he merely fashions substance, and smooths 
over the outward form. But God creates substance, 
and imparts the interior laws of its growth and com- 
position. The genius of a human artist is all visible 
on the outside of his production, but the wonderful 



WHAT THE ''word" IS. 



17 



wisdom of the Creator is found displayed in the inside 
structure of things, — in the chemistries and physiol- 
ogies of natural objects. Man makes a statue in the 
likeness of a human being, by chiselling the outside 
of a stone, or moulding the bronze, into a given 
shape ; but the Lord, the Creator, fashions the human 
body into a living structure, its interior parts leaping 
with motion and replete with vitality throughout", and 
concealing a whole world of wonders, — of organ 
within organ and function within function, — beneath 
the surface. 

Shall not the Divine Book, then, in like manner, 
transcend every human book, in the depths of its 
wisdom, in the structure of its thought, in the style 
of its composition, in the multiplicity of its meaning, 
in the complexity of its parts ? Man makes a book, 
transcribing the outward image of a thought, but God 
utters supreme wisdom, the very substance of truth 
itself, the laws of spiritual existence, the living 
structure out of which spring the everlasting ideas 
of thought. 

This remarkable character of the Divine Word is 
abundantly confirmed from tlje pages of the Book 
itself. Take as an instance the chapter in which the 
text occurs, — the first chapter of Ezekiel. The 
prophet being brought by Divine influence into a state 
of the spirit, ''the heavens were opened unto him, 
and he ''saw visions of God.'' With the senses of 
his spiritual body thus opened and brought into exer- 
cise, that he might be able to see and hear things in 
the other world, we then read further, that " The Word 
of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel, the priest, 
* * * and the hand of the Lord was there upon him.'' 
2* 



18 



LECTURE I. 



A vision of the Holy Word was then unfolded to 
him. And what a stupendous exhibition of symbol- 
ism is there brought to view ! Did any one ever else- 
where read anything like it? What a wonderful 
cluster of emblematic figures is there presented, and 
how gorgeous and glorious is the entire array ! How 
involved and intricate do the different parts appear f 
— a chapter which the Jewish youth were not allowed 
to read till thirty years of age. Does it seem as 
though the meaning of the different parts could ever 
be^ distinctly made out. What commentator, from 
Origen to Olshausen, has given an explanation of this 
vision? Not one. And yet every symbol has a 
meaning, each standing for a distinct thought, the 
whole cohering in a most beautiful order. In the 
letter, the vision is without definite meaning ; it is in 
the spiritual sense, as explained in the writings of the 
New Jerusalem, that the meaning becomes not only 
clear, but sublime. 

Here, as already said, we have a representative 
picture of the Divine Word itself : The Word of the 
Lord coming expressly to Ezekiel, the priest ; 
a description given from heaven of the wonderful 
things contained and involved in the Word of the 
Lord. Its inspiration or procedure from the Lord 
himself, its living connection with Him, its descent 
through heaven, its descent to and operation upon the 
earth, the wonderful nature of its truths, and its great 
glory when seen in its true light, are all distinctly por- 
trayed. 

The first thing the prophet saw was a whirlwind 
coming out of the north, bearing along a great cloud, 
and a fire infolding itself ; with a brightness shining 



WHAT THE «^W0RD" IS. 



19 



forth out of the midst of it and round about it like the 
color of amber. The vision of a whirlwind, — a 
powerful, involved, and circular motion of air, — on a 
grand scale, applied to the Sacred Scripture, means 
that it is a work of the Holy Spirit, that it is inspired 
from on high, — ''God-breathed,^^ as it is expressed 
in the original tongue. For the invisible atmosphere 
in motion, producing visible effects, or, the wind, 
blowing where it listeth, we hearing the sound there- 
of, yet knowing not whence it cometh or whither it 
goeth, — is everywhere used in the Sacred Scripture 
as the natural symbol of spirit and its operations ; espe- 
cially of the Holy Spirit, or Divine breath of the 
Lord. The '' great cloud which the whirlwind bore 
along, is the '' letter of the Word ; the outward, 
natural, plain, grammatical meaning. This is uni- 
formly the signification of that prophetic symbol ; 
because in the letter Divine truth has descended 
to man^s atmosphere, and become involved in the 
obscurities of his perceptions ; for the literal sense is 
the human element running through all the Bible. 
And the letter really clouds and obscures the bright 
effulgence of divine truth, and the fulness of its glory, 
as that is seen in the spiritual world, and in heaven, 
and as it may be seen by men on earth when the spir- 
itual sense is explained to them. The letter is the 
cloudy vail hung before the inner glory, — " the vail 
that is spread over all nations, — the covering cast 
over the understandings of all people at the 
same time concealing and revealing the ineffable light 
of Divine truth, as a cloud of rolling cumulus in the 
sky allows the passage of distinct sunbeams through 
its openings, yet hides the full blaze of the solar body 
behind its folds. 



20 



LECTURE I. 



The infolding j^re which the prophet saw behind the 
cloud, giving forth from itself its amber glory as it 
moved along, is the spiritual meaning of the Word, 
everywhere behind and within the letter, filling it with 
heavenly light and heat, and manifesting in every part 
Divine love in active exercise, — the infinite goodness 
of the Lord shedding forth from itself the holy illumi- 
nation of Divine wisdom. 

Space does not allow for unfolding the signification 
of all the things which the prophet saw, — those won- 
derful living creatures, with their numerous emblem- 
atic accompaniments ; we have time now only for 
saying that as a whole they represent those living and 
moving powers of the spiritual world which the Lord 
in His infinite wisdom makes use of to operate upon 
and to influence the minds of men ; emanating from 
Himself, flashing from their every side the lightning 
of His penetrating and searching truths, surrounded 
in their high and dreadful rings by the innumerable 
eyes of the Divine intelligence, omniscience, and cir- 
cumspection ; touching with their lowest principles, 
their wheels or feet, the very earth on which men 
stand and move, yet reaching, in their highest or top- 
most principles, like Jacob's ladder, up through the 
heaven of angels, to the very throne of the Eternal One 
Himself ; exhibiting to view the likenesses, of things 
animate and inanimate, high and low, — taking on 
every form necessary to adapt themselves to the man- 
ifold wants of mind on every plane of being, in every 
grade of its intelligence, — ascending and descending, 
human and angelic ; and all these, — the complex and 
— to human view — involved, yet divinely appointed 
influences by which universal mind is afi'ected and 



WHAT THE ''word" IS. 



21 



moved, is awakened, regenerated, lifted up and drawn 
towards heaven, and sustained in heaven, — all these 
dwelling and abiding in the letter of the Word of 
God, which is the fulcrum of their power and the 
medium of their operations ; the body, indeed, in which 
this is contained as a living soul. For the spirit of 
the living creature was in the wheels/' 

Hence we have a clear and intelligent reason for 
believing the Bible an entirely different collection of 
writings from all other books. We can state distinct- 
ly where its inspiration resides, and give a definite 
idea of what that inspiration consists in. It is this 
divine or heavenly element, this spiritual or angelic 
sense, this wheel within the wheel, or meaning within 
meaning, that constitutes it. 

''For the spirit of the living creature was in the 
wheels. This is a remarkable and significant expres- 
sion, and is repeated twice in the passage. And the 
meaning is that the spiritual sense is everywhere 
within the literal sense of the Word. In the symbol- 
ical vision, as we have seen, the wheels were the 
lowest parts of the complex figure,— the feet, as it 
were. And they denote the lowest principles of the 
Scripture, the external things of the letter ; for it is 
by, or in and through these that the spirit of truth 
from on high moves along over the plane of earthly 
things, adapting itself to the common level of human 
thought and feeling, and touching, with the influences 
of its living fires, the stratum of being in which the 
sensuous mind of unregenerated humanity habitually 
resides. 

Hence, everywhere, throughout the Word of God, 
there is this spirit'' within the ''wheel" of the 



22 



LECTUEE I. 



" letter," — this heavenly meaning within the natural 
meaning, like a soul in a body ; this is so, even where 
it least appears outwardly, — in law and history, in 
doctrine, in psalm and prophecy, in precept and par- 
able.* The passage before us which declares this 
truth is worthy our special attention. 

" And when the living creatures went, the wheels 
went by them ; and when the living creatures were 
lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. 
Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither 
was their spirit to go ; and the wheels were lifted up 
over against them : for the spirit of the living creature 
was in the wheels. When those went, these went; 
and when those stood, these stood ; and when those 
were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted 
up over against them ; for the spirit of the living crea- 
ture was in the wheels. " A most significative declara- 
tion ; and what more impressive or distinct mode can 
be thought of for picturing the constant and vital 
connection there is between the spiritual meaning and 
literal meaning of the Scripture ? There is no move- 
ment of the letter but on account of and for the sake 
of the spiritual sense. Every single expression in the 
grammatical sense is dictated and determined by the 
flow and the demands of the spiritual idea to be rep- 
resented. And thus the letter is everywhere " lifted 
. up" and glorified by "the spirit of life" within it. 
Every natural idea expressed in the letter has some 
spiritual idea to which it corresponds, and which it 
covers or clothes. 
When the Lord speaks to an angel. He does not 

* See note A, at the end of the volume. 



WHAT THE '^WORD" IS. 



23 



speak to him in purely Divine language, expressive of 
purely Divine thought ; for if He did, the angel could 
not understand Him ; it would be above his apprehen- 
sion. But the Lord adapts Himself to the angePs 
capacities; He speaks to him in a language he is 
accustomed to hear (or at least can understand), 
clothing His Divine thought in forms and ideas such 
as He finds in the angePs mind, which are most suitable 
to His purpose. 

And so when He speaks to a man through an angel, 
He does not speak to him in the purely Divine lan- 
guage, nor yet in the purely angelic language, for 
then the man would not understand Him ; it would be 
beyond the range of his knowledge and out of the 
reach of his thought. But he selects from the man's 
mind such knowledges and such ideas and memories 
as are best fitted to image and convey the Divine 
and angelic meanings He wishes to communicate, and 
with His heavenly ideas thus vailed, or clothed and 
covered. He speaks to the man in the man's own 
language, and in a style of thought which he can, 
more or less, understand and appreciate. 

It is thus that the Word of the Lord was given to 
the prophets ; it was thus the Law was given to 
Moses ; thus that the Psalms were given to David ; 
and thus, too, that the Word of the New Testament 
was written. And so we have a Divine element, 
together with a human element, throughout the Sacred 
Scripture. 

It is a common expression found in theological 
writings of the day, that the Divine and human ele- 
ments are ''commingled'' with each other in the 
Bible. And the idea connected with it seems to be 



24 



LECTURE I. 



quite vague and indistinct, as of a confused mixing 
of one thing with another. But this is not so. Prop- 
erly speaking, there is no mingling of the Divine with 
the human in any instance. The two elements are 
perfectly distinct, and always separable from each 
other, running in parallel lines, but never crossing ; 
the earthly elements clothing the heavenly, as the 
nicely-fitting garments of a man clothe his body. 

It is to be noted, also, that even what is called the 
human portion,— the expressions of natural thought 
and feeling in the literal sense, — are, in a very impor- 
tant sense, a Divine work. For the materials out of 
which that portion is woven were all first divinely 
superintended and prepared', and then divinely selected 
and arranged, like so many carefully polished stones, 
in that grand, inimitable mosaic, constituting the 
literal ground or table of Holy Scripture. 

This great fact, — the necessity in the nature of 
things for the existence of this human material as a 
literal basis for a Divine Word, — is strikingly, and at 
the same time beautifully set forth in a transaction 
recorded in the Book of Exodus, — a transaction 
divinely ordered, and then recorded in the Word, that 
it might dramatize and thus represent this very truth. 
We read that at first Jehovah himself fashioned two 
tables of stone, and wrote on them with His own 
finger all the words of the Law. This was to signify 
that the utterance of the Word, or the proclamation 
of Divine truth, is the work of Jehovah Himself; and 
that it is possible for Him to give it an outward 
expression quite different from what it now wears, 
and stripped of those particulars of human thought 
and feeling which we now find in the letter. 



WHAT THE ^MYORD" IS. 



25 



And we read further, that Moses was sent, with 
these two Divine tables, down from the mountain. 
And as he approached the camp of Israel, bearing 
them in his hand, he discovered the people committing 
idolatry, in worshipping a golden calf ; which when 
Moses saw, he threw the tables from him, and brake 
them there beneath the mount. This was to signify 
that such a Word would not reach the apprehensions 
of such a people. It would be too pure, too high 
above the plane of their accustomed thought and feel- 
ing. The human heart, in its fallen state, is attached 
to its idols, and must be lifted up before it can adopt 
from love the purities of Divine truth. 

Two other tables were therefore commanded to be 
made. But this time Jehovah did not make them. 
Moses made them, in the manner commanded by 
Jehovah. Thus was the human element called in to 
cooperate with the Divine. And then the Lord caused 
to be written on those new tables prepared by the 
hand of Moses, all the ivords that were written on the 
first tahles.^^ So the second tables contained every 
truth that was inscribed on the first. By all which is 
signified that the letter of Sacred Scripture is made 
conformable to human states, to meet the forms of 
thought and feeling of the people among whom it was 
written ; true both of the Old Testament and the New. 
But yet, notwithstanding the necessity of such con- 
formity, in bridging the distance between God and 
man, the heavenly meaning, the spiritual sense, remains 
the same ; for the principles of Divine truth are eter- 
nal in their nature, remaining unchangeable from age 
to ago, — the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.'' 
3 



26 



LECTUEE I. 



Having thus endeavored to portray something of 
the nature or character of the Divine Word, our next 
Lecture will be devoted to the key of its interpreta- 
tion, or the general method by which its spiritual 
meanmg may be ascertained and learned. 



LECTURE II. 



SECOND mTEODUCTORY. 

CONTENTS : — Two Methods of interpreting 

Sacred Scripture, — the Jewish, or Literal, and 
TRUE Christian or Spiritual Method. The Actual 
Present State of Biblical Interpretation Half Way 
between these two, a Mixture of both. How the 
Spiritual Sense mat be learned, and the Meaning 
of each Symbol determined. The Doctrine of Cor- 
respondence, OR Universal Law of Analogy between 
spiritual Things and natural Things, the great Key: 
when the Law is known, the Scripture its own Inter- 
preter. Illustrations of the Spiritual Sense, mean- 
ing OF ^'FiRE,'^ Water, Bread, Flesh and 
Blood/^ and other literal Emblems or Symbols, 



LECTURE- 



All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in para- 
bles ; and without a parable spake he not unto them : that it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, ' I 
will open my mouth in parables ; I will utter things which have 
been kept secret from the foundation of the world.' " — MaU, 
xui. 34, 35. 

This is the way in which the Lord always speaks to 
men, when He tells them of spiritual and heavenly 
things ; the way in which He spake through His 
prophets, and the way in which He spake when He 
came into the world in person, uttering His own truth 
from His own lips. It is the universal law by which 
the Divine language falls into human language. For, 
as the direct rays of sunshine, darting through the 
(almost) empty spaces, are insufferable, and blasting 
to the human eye, yet, falling into the earth^s atmos- 
phere, become softened, refracted, mellowed, and dif- 
fused,' thus offering an adapted and grateful medium 
to the sight, so the light of Divine truth, in descending 
to the atmosphere of human perception and thought, 
adapts itself, by a law inherent in the constitution of 
things, to the conditions and wants of our mental 
vision. 

This law (of which we have spoken) is the law of 
3* 



LECTURE II. 



vl L 11''^"°'^''''''' "''"^•^^"^ *° ^I^i^^l^ natural 
and visible things are the types or emblems of spir- 
itua and mvisible things. This is not a fanciful 
relationship, originating in the thought or imagination 

system 'frr^"'"''' ■■ "''"""^ nought into the 
A 1 t "''Sinating in the mind of the Divine 

Author Himself. It is the grand truth expressed by 
the Apo,t,e, where he says, "For the invisible thingi 
of Him from the creation of the world are clearfy 

even His eternal power and Godhead." Thus al 
nature is, by Divine intention and appointment one 
great cluster of symbols, -a vast theatre in which 

heavenly things are imaged and portrayed. The 

creation, the human form, with their moving powers 
and manifold manifestations, - instinct with a iJe from 

glyph cal tables adorning the walls of this great 
schoolhouse of the race, speaking to them of GoT of 
heaven, and eternal life; picturing forth the Divine 
goodness and the Divine truth in the endless vaSty 
of their forms, laws, and operations, the inner wor d 
all the time speaking to the soul while the outeT one 
addresses the senses. ^ 

Hence, when the Divine Book is opened, the Divine 
charts are explained ; and again, when th; chart 1 
understood, the meaning of the Book is more ctar^ 
opened and illustrated ; for the Author of both is One 
while the language and style are the same 

ihe laws and processes of the natural kingdom 
correspond to the laws and processes of the spiStoS 



METHOD OF INTERPRETATION. 



31 



kingdom, setting them forth in a visible and tangible 
manner to the thought and apprehension of the nat- 
ural mind, while in the Sacred Scripture those natural 
processes are used as types or symbols of the spiritual 
processes to which they correspond. Hence the 
origin of the phrase we employ when we say, that the 
Bible is written according to correspondences. 

One or two examples will illustrate this idea. Take 
the words of our Lord to Mcodemus, in the third 
chapter of John. Jesus answered and said unto 
him, Yerily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be 
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'' 
Here, as we see, a natural process is named to set 
forth an inward or mental process, and the idea is 
further illustrated in the conversation which there 
follows. Natural birth is an entrance into life, the 
beginning of a new state of existence; and corre- 
sponds therefore to that mental operation by which the 
plane and current of - a man's soul is changed. By the 
birth of a new love within him, his affections are 
changed, and he begins a new state of existence ; it is 
an entrance into spiritual life, and so, by continuous 
growth, into heavenly and eternal life. That which 
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of 
the spirit is spirit." 

Take again, for a second illustration, those other 
words of our Lord, to the multitude on a certain 
occasion: ''I am the living bread which came down 
from heaven ; if any man eat of this bread he shall 
live forever ; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, 
which I will give for the life of the world." —Jo/iTi 
vii. 51. 

Here quite a complex idea is involved, as a process 



32 LECTURE II. 



is hinted at composed of a number of parts or ele- 
ments. These words suggest at once not only the 
idea of food and eating, but also of assimilation, — 
of nourishment and the sustentation of life. And 
that complicated process by which the life of the body 
is ministered to and maintained, is used as a type of 
that other process by which the true life of the soul 
is fed, and nourished, and sustained. 

In these two instances, we have a type of the Divine 
method of communicating spiritual thought in human 
language. Two distinct classes of ideas are involved. 
A natural idea serving as the basis of a spiritual idea, 
the natural covering the spiritual, like a drapery over 
a statue, or containing it within, as a casket holds the 
jewels entrusted to its keeping. 

Many, perhaps most persons, will be disposed to 
say, 0, yes, we understand that ; this is the figurative 
language of Scripture.^' But we shall be very apt to 
deceive ourselves in using phrases like this, unless we 
consider carefully the ideas we entertain in regard to 
it. If we mean that these are figures after the manner 
of comparisons and metaphors found in human litera- 
ture, we fall into an error. For these are not mere 
figures, but Divine analogies, founded from creation 
in the nature of things ; particular instances of that 
great law of universal analogy between things natural 
and things spiritual springing from the conceptions of 
ther Infinite Mind, impressed on the visible world, of 
which the comparisons, figures, metaphors, tropes, 
allegories, and similitudes found in human literature, 
are but shadows and faint imitations. 

But this human faculty of perceiving and speaking 
by images and emblems, so prominent in the language 



IHETHOD OF INTEEPRETATION. 



33 



of the race, is a type, — an image, or likeness, — of 
that Divine faculty which produced the law, and which 
vivifies its action through all time. 

Thus in inspired language we have two parallel lines 
of thought, running along on the two distinct planes 
of perception and knowledge. This is the distinguish- 
ing feature of plenarily inspired language. And 
these two lines of thought running through the Word, 
give rise to two distinct and very different modes of 
interpretation, the literal and the spiritual. They may 
also, not improperly, be termed the Jeiuish and the 
True Christian, for the Jewish method is literal, while 
the True Christian is spiritual. Illustrations of these 
two methods occur in the passages in which our two 
examples are recorded. Nicodemus replied, ^^How 
can a man be born when he is old ? Can he enter a 
second time into his mother's womb and be born?'' 
His thought was directed to the natural idea ; he inter- 
preted the Lord's words literally. But our Lord 
immediately gave them another interpretation, opening 
up the two parallel lines of thought in contrast with 
each other, transferring the mind from the natural to 
the spiritual plane for the true meaning; thus, — 
" Yerily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born 
of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the 
kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. 
Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born 
again." 

So, too, in respect to those other words, in which 
He declared Himself to be the living bread that came 
down from heaven, — as soon as he had uttered them, 

the Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, 



34 



LECTUEE 11. 



How can this man give us his flesh to eat ? " This is 
according to their usual method of interpretation, — 
the way in which they have commonly understood' all 
Divine language, the way in which they understood 
the prophets; — fastening upon the natural idea, but 
never lifting their thought to the spiritual idea which 
was the inspired meaning. 

And as our Lord on that occasion continued, saying, 
"My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink 
indeed." * * * "He that eateth me, even he shall 
live by me," "many, therefore, of His disciples, 
when they had heard this, said. This is a hard saying 
who can hear it ? " Even they, having then been only 
partially instructed in heavenly things, were only half 
prepared to apprehend His real meaning. 

What, then, is the true Christian idea connected 
with these expressions ? The Christian world at large 
gathers from them the general idea that our Lord 
came to impart spiritual life. But what is the specific 
thought connected with each separate symbol ? This 
is a question which, we presume, we should ask of the 
prevailing theological literature in vain. 

We will endeavor to explain them as we are 
instructed to in the writings of the New Jerusalem 

The Bible is God's Book for man, and is every- 
where written with express reference to his spiritual 
constitution. At the creation, we read that God 
breathed into him the breath of life, ajid man became a 
hving soul. In the original tongue it is said that He 
breathed into him the breath of lives." These " two 
lives " of his soul are those which man has by virtue 
of the two grand departments of his nature, the 
Understanding and the Will, by the exercise of which 



METHOD or INTERPRETATION. 



35 



fundamental faculties he lives, as it were, two lives, — 
a life of affection and a life of thought ; or, one life of 
emotion, feeling, desire, and another life of knowl- 
edge, intelligence, reason. 

The Sacred Scripture makes constant reference to 
these two grand faculties in man ; and hence so many 
of its symbols occur in pairs, as silver and gold, sun 
and moon, wood and stone, beasts and birds, corn and 
wine, and, in the passage before us, flesh and blood. 
The Lord feeds these two faculties of the mind, and 
in a substantial sense, is Himself the bread which is 
eaten. 

He was. Himself, the embodiment of the Divine 
goodness. He felt all the love which constitutes that 
goodness, and He acted that goodness towards and 
before men. Thus He communicated, and still com- 
municates, to them a knowledge of it. He taught 
them in words what it was and is ; He brought it to 
them in His acts, He manifested it before them in a 
visible life among men, so that they could see it, 
understand it, be affected by it, appreciate it. 

This is what is meant by His giving unto men His 
flesh to eat, — communicating to them this knowledge 
of His Divine goodness, to feed their emotional nature, 
to feed their affections. For if men will be affected 
by His goodness, will accept it, receive, appropriate 
it, by loving and copying it, by reciprocating His 
love, and acting out similar love towards others, it 
will feed their souls, and nourish them to heavenly 
and eternal life. 

The blood has reference to the intellectual 
nature, and means that He likewise communicates a 
knowledge of His truth to the understanding. He 



36 



LECTURE II. 



was Himself the truth,— the Word made flesh. The 
Divine truth was the very life-blood of His soul, the 
vital principle which constituted His wisdom and 
circulated through all His acts. He communicates a 
knowledge of this truth ; He taught it in words, He 
exemplified it, he lived it. If man drinks this blood, 
if he imbibes this truth, believes it, loves it, seeks to 
understand it, and regulates his conduct by it, it will 
enlarge his understanding, building up the rational 
part of his being and making him wise unto salvation. 
Hence He says, he that believefh on me shall never 
thirst/^ — belief heing an act of the understanding. 

Thus He feeds, — or nourishes and sustains, — both 
departments of man's spiritual being, — the heart and 
the head, or the will and the intellect. Such, then, is 
the true Christian idea of those words. 

But this spiritual flesh and blood, — this knowledge 
of goodness and this knowledge of truth, — are some- 
thing which come to us from without; we acquire 
them through the senses, and appropriate them by 
acts and the exercise of faculties which are our own, 
and of which we are conscious. And in order that the 
Divine work in us may be complete, in order that we 
may have effected in us all we need to have effected, 
it is necessary that we should be the subjects of still 
other influences, viz : the invisible operation of the 
spirit influencing us to will and to do, — moving upon 
us from within, and of which motions we are u?2Con- 
scious, save from their effects. 

And hence our Lord also is said to communicate 
these influences. For we read, in the words of John 
the Baptist, ''He that cometh after me is mightier 
than I. * * He shall baptize you with the Holy spirit 



METHOD OF INTERPRETATION. 37 



and with j?re/^ Here we find the same duplicate form 
of expression, referring to the two human faculties. 
The bapfism of the Holy Spirit denotes the Lord's 
internal operation upon the understanding, illustrating 
a man^s mind, enabling him to see and understand the 
truth, while the baptism of fire symbolizes a similar 
operation upon the heart, filling it with love, disposing 
it to accept the truth, and inspiring the affections with 
a desire for the things of the Lord's kingdom,— 
a desire for a good and heavenly life. 

Thus we see the simplicity, the spirituality, and the 
beautiful order or definite regularity of the Divine 
Word. It does not deal in mere generalities, or 
vagueness, like the imaginations of men. The spirit- 
ual sense is distinct and definite in its ideas, giving 
clearness and fixity to the letter. And how important 
it is that the Word of God should be so written. How 
much more powerfully does it affect the mind, speak- 
ing thus directly to the heart in strong natural sym- 
bols which all can see and feel, than if it dealt more 
abstractly with spiritual subjects ! Our thoughts and 
our feelings most naturally run in this low plane, and 
the truth must descend thither to arrest the thought 
and awaken the emotions. 

We have just brought into view a new symbol ; we 
have said that the baptism of fire means a new flame 
of life enkindled in man's heart by the Lord, and that 
flame is a love for heavenly things. Fire, then, means 
love^ being the divine emblem of it in nature ; not only 
divinely chosen to symbolize it, but also divinely cre- 
ated to be an image of it. Let us remember this when 
we turn to the Divine Book, and see how many 
passages it will unlock for us, — see how much new 
4 



38 



I/ECTURE II. 



meaning will break forth to us from many of its pages. 
The meaning is definite, distinct, clear ;>e stands for 
love, and for nothing else. • 

But there are many kinds and degrees of love, good 
and evil. There is Divine love, and angelic love, and 
human love. Then there is the love of truth, the love 
of what is good, and love to the neighbor ; as well as 
a love of wickedness, of what is false, a love of 
revenge and cruelty ; in short, diabolical love, in all 
its forms and degrees, which delights in doing what is 
perverse, disorderly, and wrong. 

Now all these kinds of love are spoken of in the 
Scripture, being commended or condemned according 
to their quality. And they are all symbolized hyjire, 
— fire of different kinds and origins, the ground emblem * 
remaining the same. 

With this key in our hands, how many seals of the 
Divine Book are opened to us ! We shall know the 
spiritual meaning of that pzYZar of fire by which the 
Lord led His people by night in the wilderness ; we 
see that it is the way in which He leads them in every 
age, speaking to them in love, and holding them fast 
by their affections. We can see the meaning of those 
fires, holy and pure, which the Lord enjoined the chil- 
dren of Israel to keep burning upon his altars ; and of 
those words of Moses to the people, where he says, of 
God, " Out of Heaven He made thee to hear His voice, 
that He might instruct thee ; and He showed thee His 
great fire:' We shall remember, too, with a new 
sense of their significance, the horses of fire and 
chariot oi fire in which the Lord caused the prophet 
Elijah to be taken up into heaven. These words of 
the Psalm, too, will occur to us as confirmatory of 



METHOD OF INTEEPHETATION. 



39 



this meaning of /re; — ''My heart was hot. within 
me ; while I was musing, the fire burned ; then spake 
I with my tongue/^ And as we reflect upon it, we 
shall be led to a deeper sense of the spiritual meaning 
of that remarkable vision of the prophet, in which the 
angel of Jehovah took the tongs that were beside the 
altar, and took a live coal from the fire burning upon 
the altar, and laying it upon the lips of the prophet, 
bade him then go forth and prophesy in His name, — 
this act of the angel denoting the inspiration of holy 
love from the Lord, impelling him to speak. 

So of innumerable other instances to which we have 
not space to refer. 

We shall be equally enabled also to understand 
those other passages in which that perverted and 
wicked love is spoken of which serves to inflame the 
bad passions and corrupted affections of men, and 
unclean spirits. We shall first see it typified in that 
strange fire, which Nadab and Abihu brought to the 
altars of the Lord, and of which strange fire they both 
subsequently died. We shall remember it, confirmed 
in many passages of the prophets, of which this is 
one: ''For wickedness burneth as a fire; it shall 
devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the 
thickets of the forest. ^ * * And the people shall be 
as the fuel of the fire J'' — Is. ix. 18, 21. 

And again, in another place, — " Therefore shall the 
Lord, the Lord of Hosts, send among His fat ones 
leanness ; and under His glory He shall kindle a burn- 
ing like the burning of a fire. And the light of Israel 
shall be for a fire, and His Holy One for a flame ; and 
it shall burn and devour His briers and His thorns in 
one day ; and shall consume the glory of His forest and 



40 



LECTURE II. 



of His fruitful field, both soul and body,'' This is what 
their own evil lusts will do, even to the Lord^s people, 
if they forget Him and turn away again to their own 
follies, — the selfish and worldly things which they 
formerly loved. 

Thus does the Holy Word declare its own meaning, 
and we have a Divine key to the sacred symbols. 

And with this knowledge in mind we shall no longer 
be in doubt as to the meaning f)f hell fire, several times 
mentioned in the New Testament ; and the reason why 
it is called also the fire unquenchable, will also readily 
occur to us, viz : because it is the nature of evil love, 
or unhallowed desire, never to be satisfied, but to 
reach forth continually for something more, and so to 
burn on in its cravings forever. 

One other emblem was mentioned in our Lord's 
words to Nicodemus, which we passed over at the 
time, but which we will now speak of for a moment. 

He said, — " Except a man be born of water and of 
the spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'^ 

Born of water? What is the meaning of water? 
Can it be that the application of material water to the 
body, in any way, can in the least affect the moral 
character, or the spiritual state of the soul ? Cer- 
tainly not. And yet, we believe there are those who 
insist on the literal interpretation of this passage, and, 
that the passage has given rise to no little contro- 
versy. 

But our Lord cannot mean material water here, as 
introducing the soul into the kingdom of God. He 
employs it as an emblem of something spiritual ; for 
very soon after, in the very next chapter, and not 
many paragraphs from this conversation with Nicode- 



liETHOD OF INTERPRETATION. 



41 



muS; He converses with the Samaritan woman at the 
well, speaking again of water in His discourse. 

Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest 
the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, 
Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, 
and He would have given thee living water/ ^ At 
first she understood Him literally ; she interpreted His 
words as some modern commentators do ; she followed 
the Jewish method ; she wanted a supply of na^i^raZ 
water, which should remove the necessity of her going 
thither to draw. 

But Jesus continued His discourse, and in a manner 
similar to that with Nicodemus, He opens up the two 
parallel lines of thought, the spiritual above the nat- 
ural, directing the mind to the spiritual idea for His 
true meaning. This is the true method of Scripture 
interpretation, — the Divine method. Jesus answered 
and said unto her. Whosoever drinketh of this water 
shall thirst again ; but whosoever shall drink of the 
water that I shall give him, shall never thirst ; but the 
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of 
water, springing up into everlasting life.^' 

Thus, by His words we are directed to water of 
another order. What, then, specifically, we ask, is 
this water of the soul to which He refers? We 
reply, in the language of the New Church, it is puri- 
fying truth, — the first precepts of repentance and 
obedience. There is a certain class of truths in the 
Sacred Scripture designed for this purpose, and which 
have this effect. If we imbibe them, that is, if we 
receive the instruction they impart, and apply them to 
the life, they not only satisfy our thirst for practical 

knowledge, but they wash us spiritually, — they purify 
4.* 



42 



LECTURE II. 



the mind of its evil dispositions, and cleanse our 
conduct from its obvious sins. Such are the prohib- 
itory commandments of the Law : Thou shalt not 
bear false witness ; thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt 
not kill ; thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 
God in vain/' 

These are calculated to remove all those wrono* 
things from our characters, and to purify us of them. 
Such truths as these are what are meant by the waters 
of the Divine Word ; they prepare the soul for the 
operations of the Holy Spirit, and introduce the man 
who is obedient to them into the kingdom of the Lord. 
Similar to them are many precepts in the Gospels, 
inculcating repentance from evil works. They are 
what are meant, too, by the waters of baptism ; the 
water employed in that holy ordinance having this 
meaning and signification. 

With this key in our hand we may search the Bible 
anew, receiving definite and clear instruction from a 
multitude of passages which before yielded only an 
obscure or vague sense. In many cases, as we read, 
we shall see the spiritual meaning shine forth from the 
letter like a lamp of light ; from the blessing pro- 
nounced in the First Psalm, upon the man, who, for 
his obedience to these truths, shall be like a tree 
planted by the rivers of water,'' to that vision of holy 
waters beheld by Ezekiel, flowing forth in such abun- 
dance from the sanctuary of the Lord, purifying the 
land and giving life as they flowed along ; and thence 
forward, through Old Testament and New, to that 
great river of the waters of life, clear as crystal, 
mentioned in the last chapter of Revelation, as pro- 
ceeding out of the throne of God, and watering the 



METHOD OF INTERPRETATION. 



43 



garden of God by the streets of the Holy City. And 
every passage we read will confirm the definite spir- 
itual meaning of this sacred symbol. 

There is, too, an opposite sense in which this general 
symbol is not unfrequently used in the Scripture. For 
when instead of the common truths of life and prac- 
tice men. imbibe perverted or false maxims of life and 
conduct, then they no longer drink living waters, but 
waters of temptation, an overrunning flood, devastating 
instead of cleansing. But of this opposite meaning 
we have now no space to bring forth examples. 

From the few and brief illustrations of the spiritual 
sense of Scripture we have had time to introduce, 
there has been seen, we trust, something of that law 
by which angelic thought translates itself into human 
language ; and thus, also, something of the law by 
which inspired language may be translated back 
again, and the angelic idea be evolved from the natural 
expression. 

Such is the character of the Divine Word through- 
out,— awheel within a wheel, — a spiritual meaning 
within a literal meaning ; first, a continuous stratum 
of thought addressed to natural perception and feel- 
ing, and then, within or underlying that, another 
continuous stratum of thought addressed to spiritual 
perception and feeling. Even in those passages where 
at first we might least expect it, as in the histories of 
the Old Testament, though at first sight there is noth- 
ing but literal narrative, yet there it is, deep down, 
needing only an exposition, according to the laws of 
correspondences, to bring it out. This the Apostle 
Paul teaches in many places, especially in Galatians, 
where, speaking of the history of Abraham, and of 
his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, and of Sarah and 



44 



LECTURE II. 



Hagar, he says, ''These things are an allegory/' and 
that by the two females and their two sons, are repre- 
sented the two covenants, the one gendering to spir- 
itual freedom, the other to spiritual bondage. This 
explanation is according to correspondences. The 
Apostle here declares the law of those ancient his- 
tories, — they are all dwine allegories ; under a vail of 
true history setting forth things of the spiritual life ; 
things relating to the regeneration of man, and to our 
Lord's great work of redemption and glorification. 
How often has this divine analogy been perceived in 
the history of the Israelites, especially in their journey 
from Egypt to the Holy Land, symbolizing as it does 
the life-long progress of the Lord's redeemed ones 
from their original state of sinfulness to a state of 
spiritual peace and rest, and so, to the heavenly 
Canaan above ! 

Hence David, when moved by inspiration, fervently 
prays, — " Lord, open thou mine eyes, that I may 
behold wondrous things out of thy law." And our 
Lord, when He would fully instruct His disciples and 
prepare them for their work, ''opened their under- 
standings that they might understand the Scriptures ; " 
and then, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, 
He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the 
things concerning Himself," saying unto them that all 
things written " in the Law of Moses, and in the Proph- 
ets, and in the Psalms," concerning Him, must needs 
be fulfilled. And in the " Prophets," in those days, 
were included the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, 
and Kings. 

Thus the spiritual sense , everywhere underlies the 
letter, as the granite rock in the earth's crust underlies 
all other strata. And as the granite, here and there, 



METHOD OF INTERPRETATION. 



45 



at long intervals, penetrating the upper crust and 
rising into peaks, displays itself to the eye, visible 
and bare, so does the spiritual sense of the Word, 
here and there, at long intervals, crop out, as it were, 
showing itself on the surface, expressed in plain lan- 
guage, so that none can miss it. The two great 
commandments in Deuteronomy, of love to the Lord 
and love to the neighbor, the ten blessings in the 
Sermon on the Mount, the new commandment of 
mutual love, given in John, are instances of this. 

And as the granite, though unseen, yet underlies all 
strata, giving support to all above it, whether sand or 
soil or gravel, so does the spiritual sense of the Word 
underlie all parts, whether history or Psalm, whether 
prophecy, commandment, or parable, constituting the 
great substratum, — the Rock of continuous divine 
truth, which is the rest and support of the whole. 
The literal sense may, and often does, appear dis- 
jointed, broken, confused, fragmentary ; but the spir- 
itual sense is always consistent, connected, and 
continuous. Like the inner vesture which our Lord 
wore while on the earth, it is '^without seam, woven 
from the top throughout,'^ a continuous and unbroken 
garment of holy, Divine truth.* 

And having now seen something of the right mode 
of interpreting Scripture, we shall be prepared to go 
forward in our next, and apply this law to unlocking 
the meaning of certain portions of prophecy, especially 
those relating to the second coming of the Lord, and 
the first three chapters of Revelation ; and after that, 
to the other chapters of the same Book. 



* See note B, at the end of the volume. 



LECTURE III. 



THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 

CONTENTS :-FiBST Three Chapters op Eeyela- 
TiON ; Remarks on Interpretation ; The Second Advent 
A Spiritual Advent, effected bt a Definite Instrumen- 
tality; The Meaning of "Clouds," symbolical of 
Things in the Letter of the Word; Examination of 
Passages ; The Book of Eevelation distinctively a 
Book of the New Jerusalem Church ; Eefers to these 
Times ; The Second Advent consists in the Eevelation 
OF THE Spiritual Sense of the Word, - the Opening of 

THE GREAT BoOK, THROUGH WHICH A NEW IdEA OF GoD IS 
COMMUNICATED, VIZ: THAT THE LoRD JeSUS ChEIST IS THE 

ONLY God, in One Person, the One "who is, who was, 

AND who is to come, - THE AlMIGHTY ; " CONNECTION OF 

Swedenborg's Mission with this Event. 



LECTUEE. 



Behold He cometh with clouds ; and every eye shall see Him.* 
^EevA. 7. 

We have spoken of the Sacred Scripture ; of the 
two senses which it contains^ — the natural and the 
spiritual ; and we have referred briefly to the two dis- 
tinct modes of interpretation which these two parallel 
lines of thought have given rise to^ namely/ the 
literal; which we have denominated also the Jewish, 
and the spiritual, which we have also denominated the 
true Christian method. The actual state of Biblical 
interpretation in the Christian world around us is a 
middle ground, — half way between these two modes. 

The Jews, adhering strictly to the former, are still 
expecting the advent of the Messiah as a temporal 
prince, to set up, and rule in, a powerful monarchy, 
of which their nation is to constitute the privileged 
aristocracy, whom all other nations are to serve as 
subjects and common people. But when our Lord 
came, He introduced a series of ideas of another order. 
He declared His kingdom to be not of this world, but 
a spiritual kingdom. He interpreted the prophecies 
in a new way, showing that, under an imagery of nat- 
ural things, they really meant heavenly things ; and 
applying all those glowing and glorious promises 
5 



50 



LECTtTEE ni. 



which before -tvere supposed to relate and belong to 
the Jewish nation, to His own faithful disciples, — to 
the members of His spiritual kingdom throughout all 
lands. His Apostles followed Him, in a similar mode 
ox interpretation, and when they quoted any of the 
prophecies of the Old Testament, gave them a corre- 
sponding meaning, evolving from them an idea above 
the letter, and which, until then, the letter, like a vail, 
had served to conceal. 

Christian commentators have therefore followed 
them, at least to the extent of the passages they 
explained ; but being unacquainted with the great law 
by which the spiritual sense is made clear, and not 
knowing that the spiritual sense is not confined to 
certain paragraphs, but extends to the whole Word, 
they have fallen into much confusion. For not distin- 
guishing clearly between the two lines of thought 
existing everywhere, they fasten upon the naturaliAea 
in some places as the true and only meaning, while in 
other passages, where the symbolism is a little more 
obvious, they rise to the spiritual idea, declaring that 
to be the meaning. Hence there is no determinate 
method, every commentator being left to make his own 
conjectures and reason out his own conclusions. The 
prevailing system, therefore, is one composed partly 
of light and partly of darkness, with no key to open 
obscurities or harmonize conflicting views. Some 
commentators incline most to the Jewish method, 
attaching their thought to the outward symbol, and 
turning all things possible into the literal channel. 
Such men expect the Divine prophecies to take effect 
on the physical universe, and are looking for the 
destruction of the visible heavens and the habitable 



THE SECOND COMING. 



51 



globe ; they expect the Lord to come in person on the 
clouds floating in our earthly atmosphere ; they expect 
to see the distant stars fall from their places to the 
earth, and the solid ground consumed by fire. 

But as the Jew has waited in vain, for 2500 years, 
for the realization of his idea of the Messiah^s king- 
dom, and if he waits 2500 years longer, will still 
expect in vain, so will all those literaHzing Christians 
who are looking for physical changes, and great 
visible demonstrations in material elements, at our 
Lord^s second coming, be deceived, and may wait on, 
for thousands and thousands of years, in vain. For 
the Lord has founded the earth and the visible starry 
heavens to abide forever ; the earth to be the seminary 
of men, where they may be prepared for heaven, 
while the human race, on this globe, is never to be cut 
off. 

The higher we look, the more we ascend into the 
holy mountain of the Lord, the more we elevate our 
thought to the great spiritual realities of which the 
Scriptures treat, leaving material things behind, the 
clearer will be the light shining in upon the soul, and 
the more we can see the interior and truly Divine 
qualities of the Scriptures, the more holy and pure 
will be the influence they will shed forth upon us, and 
the more powerfully will they operate upon our minds 
to cleanse them of earthly things, and thus to reno- 
vate and bless them. 

What do the Scriptures teach concerning our Lord's 
second coming ? 

We will briefly state what we are taught in the New 
Jerusalem. We are here told that the second coming 
of the Lord consists in the revelation of the spiritual 



52 



LECTUKE III. 



sense of the Bible. Here, as we have already 
attempted to show, is an interior, spiritual meaning, 
above and within the literal, running through the 
entire Word of God, and hitherto unknown, or known 
only in fragments ; the Lord now, therefore, effects an 
opening of His Word, making known its spiritual 
meaning, and revealing all those wonderful and hith- 
erto undiscovered truths which that meaning contains. 
This is a new coming of His, into the world ; a new 
coming, in and through the Word ; a new coming, not 
in visible, bodily form, but in and through a new 
and fuller dispensation of His own truth. 

Now let us examine, candidly and carefully, whether 
these things be not so. Let us read the prophecies in 
the light of the true Christian mode of interpretation, 
and see what it really is which they foretell. 

In the 24th of Matthew, Our Lord says that He 
shall come in (or upon) the clouds of heaven with 
power and great glory ; and in our text, where the 
time of the fulfilment of this prophecy is spoken of, it 
is repeated, " Behold he cometh with clouds. What 
is the meaning here ? What is the prophetic sense of 
these words ? The natural idea of a cloud is plain enough, 
but what is the spiritual idea ? What do clouds symbol- 
ize ? We have already briefly stated, in the first Dis- 
course, that clouds are typical of the literal sense of the 
Scripture, because in the letter Divine truth is clouded and 
obscured by the natural things therein expressed. And 
these natural symbols of the letter are what are meant by 
clouds and what are called clouds throughout the pro- 
phetic Scriptures, as might be clearly shown did space 
allow of a full citation of passages. A very few must 
suffice. Thus, the cZou6??/ pillar, by which the Lord led 



THE SECOND COMING. 



53 



the Israelites through the wilderness, denoted the 
letter of Scripture, — Divine truth in obscurity, — by 
which He leads and instructs His people in all ages. 
The same thing is signified by the ''great cloud with 
which He enveloped Himself upon Mt. Sinai, when 
He came and delivered the Law to Moses. He always 
veils Himself with a covering of external truth, when 
He comes to speak to and instruct men. It is for this 
reason that in the prophetic language '' the strength 
of Jehovah is said to be ''in the clouds, that He 
" rideth upon the clouds/^ that " His truth extendeth 
unto the clouds,^ ^ that Ezekiel saw a cloud filling the 
sanctuary of the temple. And the reason also why, in 
the prophecies of Daniel and the New Testament, the 
Lord is said to come in the clouds of heaven. The 
form of expression is worthy of being noted. The 
language always is, "in the clouds of lieavenJ^ 

Yv^hen the spiritual meaning is tin-own into the nat- 
ural expressions of . Scripture, it is like pouring a flood 
of sunlight upon and through a cloud in the sky, 
which thus, from being dark, becomes instantly bathed 
in glory, and lighted up from behind with golden 
brilliancy, and the richest-colored hues. 

The light is already there, behind the cloud, but is 
now first made to break forth and shine through, by 
having that meaning explained, and so made apparent 
to the mental eye. 

Thus we see, the moment we apply the key of cor- 
respondences to unlock the letter of the Word, we at 
once come at the meaning, and discover that we are 
to expect our Lord at His second coming to appear in 
and upon the literal sense of Scripture, by the 
light of Divine truth shining through it. Take also 



54 



LECTURE III. 



that vision seen by the apostles at our Lord's ascension 
recorded in the first chapter of Acts. We read that 
"while they beheld, he was taken up ; and a cloud 
received him out of their sight. And while they 
looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up 
behold, two men stood by them in white apparel ; who 
also said, — ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing- 
up into heaven ? this same Jesus, who is taken up from 
you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye 
have seen him go into heaven." 

We have turned to this passage especially, because 
It IS the principal one employed to prove' a visible, 
personal coming, and the only one, we believe, that is 
rehed upon as giving that doctrine a sure foundation. 
But let us examine it in the light of the spiritual 
sense, and with the key in our hand. The apostles 
were then in holy vision. Men are not able to gaze up 
into heaven with their natural eyes, nor is our Lord's 
glorified and Divine spiritual body, or the forms of 
angels, visible to the mortal eye. John, in Patmos, 
informs us that he was in tlie spirit when he thus saw 
our Lord, and when the door in heaven was opened to 
him. The apostles, therefore, on that occasion, were 
in a state similar to that in which all the prophets were 
when they had their visions. The senses of their 
spiritual bodies were opened, and what they heard and 
saw they heard and saw in the spiritual world and not 
in the natural world. 

This vision, therefore, is to be interpreted like the 
prophetic visions, and its symbols explained in the 
same way. The cloud there has the same prophetic 
meaning it has in all other places. It was typical of 
the letter of the word, through which His truth should 



THE SECOND COMING. 



55 



in the latter days be revealed. The two men in white 
raiment told them that He should come in like manner 
as they had seen Him go ; but those men were angels, 
and though they clothed their speech in natural Ian- 
guage, we know that the angelic thought rests in the 
spiritual idea, and not in the natural symbol. Trans- 
lating their words, therefore, according to the great 
rule already given, their expression means that when 
He should come again. He would come in and through 
the literal symbols of His own Divine Word. He had 
then come as the Divine Truth, as the Word made 
flesh, and He would come again as the Divine truth, 
as the same Word opened and explained. He had 
manifested himself once in personal form, and the 
Divine economy never repeats itself. 

Hence, in accordance with this prophecy, where 
His coming is again foretold, in the fourth chapter of 
Eevelation, it is described as an opening of the Book 
sealed with seven seals, and a disclosure from within 
it of what it contained. The Book there meant, is of 
course the Bible ; the one great Book, the Book of 
books. Now its seals are taken off when its meaning 
is explained according to the spiritual and real sense. 
The natural symbols are over this interior meaning 
like so many seals. And when the spiritual idea, 
veiled within a natural idea, is disclosed, the seal is 
taken off. Thus, when it is revealed to us that the 
fiesh of our Lord, occurring' in His word, denotes a 
knowledge of His goodness, that j^re is uniformly typ- 
ical of the flame of love, that loater is the divinely 
chosen emblem of cleansing and purifying truth, the 
seals are then taken off from all those scriptural sym- 
bols, as well as from the passages in which they 



56 



LECTUEE III. 



occur ; and we instantly know their meaning. Thus 
we see what is meant by opening the Book. And in 
the writings of the ISFew Jerusalem this is completely 
accomplished. The symbolism of the whole Divine 
Word is unfolded, and everything it contains made 
known, so far as' men are capable of understanding. 
The accounts of the creation, of ante-diluvian history, 
of the Flood, of the Tower of Babel, the whole history 
of the descendants of Abraham, as well as the gospels 
and the prophecies, have, in these writings, their seals 
taken off, and their spiritual meaning disclosed. 

Hence, also, where the Second Coming is still fur- 
ther symbolized, in the nineteenth chapter of Revela- 
tion, where the event is set forth under that stupen- 
dous imagery of the ivliite horse and his Eider, it is 
said that he is to come as the Word of God. " And 
I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse ; and 
He that sat upon him is called Faithful and True, and 
in righteousness doth he judge and make war ; His 
eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were 
many crowns ; and He had a name written, which no 
man knew but he himself. And He was clothed in a 
vesture dipped in blood, and His name is called The 
Word of God,'' 

This, therefore, is the way in which He is to come, 
— as the Word of God, The meaning of this vision 
is, that in this new dispensation, He goes forth to 
enlighten the understandftigs of men, to communi- 
cate to them a better understanding of Himself, of His 
Divine Truth, and of the spiritual meaning of His 
Word. 

But there is still one other mode in which this com- 
ing and these latter days are spoken of in the proph- 



THE SECOND C03IIXG. 



57 



ets. It is uniformly characterized as a time of new 
and glorious light ; as a morning of great brilliancy 
and clearness ; as a day shining in fuller lustre^ in 
whica the light of the moon shall be as the light of 
the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold, as the light 
of seven days. And the New Jerusalem is described 
as bei.ig lighted by a more effulgent glory from on 
high. Light is so universally acknowledged as the 
Biblical symbol of truth, that in common language it 
has come to be used as a synonyme of truth, and we 
need not, therefore, confirm its meaning. In Daniel, 
it is said that many shall run to and fro, and knowledge 
shall be increased. We see, therefore, that the dis- 
tinguishing feature of these new times, foretold by 
the prophets, is a remarkable increase of knowledge, 
and the diffusion of more glorious truth. But what 
kind of knosvledge and what kind of truth do you sup- 
pose ? Not of mere physical science, or truth relat- 
ing to natural things ! no ; a knowledge of divine and 
heavenly things, and such truth as can illumine the 
soul, and make it wiser in the things of the Lord's 
kingdom. 

And our Lord himself says in Matthew, For as 
the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even 
unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man 
be;'^ and in another place, '-For as the lightning, 
that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, 
shineth into the other part under heaven, so shall also 
the Son of Man be in his day.^^ 

Now what is lightning but the sudden breaking forth 
of greater light from heaven ? Natural lightning is of 
such a character, that though it occur in ordinary day- 
light, yet it causes itself to be seen as a flash of still 



58 



LECTUEE III. 



Stronger light. And so this opening of the Divine 
Word as to its spiritual meaning, although it comes 
m an age when men are enjoying the common daylight 
of Christianity as revealed in the letter of the Bible ; 
yet, is a light of a so much stronger and intenser kind 
as to cause itself to be seen over and above all this ; 
and as it shines out over the world, it is capable of en- 
lightening to a still higher degree the whole mental 
horizon. 

And in that remarkable vision in the first chapter of 
Ezekiel, which we have already partly explained (in 
our first discourse), this same symbol is used to typi- 
fy the inner glory — or spiritual meaning— of the 
Holy Word. For we there read, " As for the likeness 
of the hvmg creatures, their appearance was like burn- 
ing coals of fire, like the appearance of lamps : it went 
up and down among the living creatures ; and the fire 
was bright ; and out of the fire went forth lightmng. 
And the living creatures ran and returned as the ap- 
pearance of a flash of lightnmg." 

_ Such is the prophetic description of that living prin- 
ciple of the Holy Word which giveth light and life 
Our Lord says, " I am the light of the worid ; " " The 
words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they 
are life-/' while the apostle says, "the letter killeth; 
it IS the spirit that maketh alive." 

Thus, we find, on an examination of the prophecies 
one remarkable fact, namely; that all the dilTerent 
lines of symbolism, however they may differ in their 
specific forms, tend towards one result. They all 
look one way, converging to the same focus, describ- 
ing, by a variety of emblems, one general truth, and 
all leadmg us to expect that the event to which they 



THE SECOND COMIKG. 



59 



relate will occur in one distinct and definite way. 
They all declare, with one voice, that the Lord^s se- 
cond coming is to consist in the opening of His Word 
and the consequent diffusion of a fuller measure of 
heavenly light or truth. 

We have also seen, we trust, to some limited de- 
gree, the manner in which a knowledge of correspond- 
ences opens the meaning of the Divine Word, caus- 
ing its chapters of otherwise obscure symbolism, to 
yield a clear, steady, rational, and uniform light. And 
we have exemplified, we hope, to the same extent, 
also, the true method of scriptural interpretation, 
which we have endeavored to show to consist, not 
merely in an apprehension of the natural idea described 
in the letter, nor in any mystical, or vague and un- 
warrantable meaning attributed to the letter, nor yet, 
in taking in one place the literal thought alone, and 
then in another, the spiritual thought alone, as the 
meaning, without definite rule ; but in getting, in all 
cases, a distinct idea of both senses. First, a clear 
idea of the natural or literal meaning as a basis, and 
then, a clear and distinct idea of the spiritual thought 
to which the natural thought corresponds ; thus giv- 
ing to each of the two senses of Scripture, its full 
scope and meaning; remembering always that the 
heavenly meaning, the true angelic idea is lodged in 
the spiritual sense and not in the literal. 

This is what is meant in those three places where it 
is said that the Lord will bring His holy angels with 
Him at his second coming. He will come in the clouds 
with His angels ; and in the nineteenth chapter of 
Revelation, it is said that the armies of heaven fol- 
lowed Him upon white horses, By which is signified 



60 



LECTURE III. 



that He comes to communicate to men a knowledge 
of the heavenly meaning of His Word, that hence- 
forth they may, if they will, understand that Word as 
the angels do ; and that the angels rejoice and coop- 
erate with the Lord in His purpose of revealing this 
truth to men, and in influencing men to receive it. 

We have now seen what is the nature of the Lord^s 
coming ; and before leaving this branch of the sub- 
ject, we wish to invite distinct attention to two other 
points, which are suggested by words of our Lord in 
the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew. He there 
leaves two important cautions to his followers in rela- 
tion to His coming. He says, first, ^'Take heed 
that no man deceive you. For many shall come in 
my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive 
many.^^ Now this caution is frequently read, but is 
it often reflected upon ? What kind of idea do these 
words carry with them ? — Take heed that no man 
deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, 
lam Christ ; and shall deceive many.^^ But how would 
it be possible to practise such deception, provided the 
coming of the Lord were to be of such a nature as is 
commonly supposed ? How would it be possible for 
a man to lift himself up into mid-air, among the clouds 
of our atmosphere, there surround himself with 
angels, or what should appear to be angels, and with 
light and glory, and thus descend to the earth in great 
power, calling on men to worship and obey him ? 
Manifestly, it could not be done. The event, as too 
commonly conceived, could not be imitated by man. 
It would be one in relation to which no deception 
could be practised, one about which it would be 



THE SECOND COMIXG. 



61 



impossible there should be any mistake, for ho finite 
power could produce such outward visible manifesta- 
tions as those, or set the world on fire, or cause the 
visible stars to fall from the firmament. 

This advice of our Lord is wholly inapplicable and 
entirely without meaning, if the event to which it 
refers were going to take place in that manner. And 
these quiet words of His, coming down thus across 
the centuries, ought of themselves to be sufficient to 
point our minds to some different sort of fulfilment. 
For most assuredly He would never condescend to 
give irrelevant or untimely advice. 

But change the view for a moment. Let us look 
upon the second advent of the Lord in its true light, 
contemplating it as an event which introduces new and 
important truth into the world, and these words fall 
at once into their right places in our apprehension. 
We see their relevancy and pith. A revelation of 
truth, committed, as it necessarily is, to writing ; con- 
sisting, as it necessarily does, of statements and 
doctrines printed and disseminated in books, as the 
Bible itself was, ofiers a field in which the imitative 
powers and deceptive ability of man may display 
themselves. A revelation of truth is a thing that may 
be feigned and pretended. Men have claimed to have 
a revelation from heaven when they had no such rev- 
elation, and thus have deceived the few or many who 
have followed them. To this kind of advent our 
Lord^s words are entirely applicable. His followers 
everywhere are enjoined to take heed.^^ Open the 
eyes of the mind and inquire for yourselves. ''Let 
no man deceive you.'^ Exercise your own rationality ; 
bring the spiritual and intellectual powers of your 



62 



LECTURE III, 



minds into operation, and reason and judge for your- 
selves. Search the Scriptures/^ and see whether 
these things be so. Eead, compare, and examine. 
How else can you ever see the light or ever know the 
truth ? 

^ The other caution to which we referred is equally 
significant, and is in these words : Then, if any man 
shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe 
it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false 
prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders ; 
insomuch that if it were possible, they shall deceive 
the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. 
Wherefore if they shall say unto you. Behold, he is in 
the desert, go not forth ; Behold, he is in the secret 
chambers, believe it not.'' — Matt. xxiv. 23. Are men 
apt to regard attentively what these words imply ? 
To our apprehension, they warn us explicitly against 
expecting a visible coming. Were He actually to 
come in person and appear anywhere in the world, it 
would be necessary to announce that fact by a '^Lo 
here,'' or a Lo there." We should be absolutely 
obliged to say that He had come somewhere, and in so 
doing should fall directly under the condemnation 
implied in this caution. We could not announce the 
second advent, if that were to have been a personal 
appearing, after it should have occurred, without con- 
travening the words of this advice. 

Clergymen who rely on a literal coming, have told 
me that they did expect the Lord to appear in the desert 
between Egypt and Palestine, on a white horse, and 
so ride up to Jerusalem, and set up His kingdom there 
in outward power and glory. But we are expressly 



THE SECOND COMING. 



63 



told by our Lord Himself that if any one comes to us 
in these latter days, with such an announcement as 
that, neither to go forth after it nor to believe it. 

The more these things are pondered the more wilt it 
be seen that all our Lord's words refer to an event of 
a different nature. For immediately following this 
last caution He says, — " For as the lightning cometh 
out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so 
shall the coming of the Son of Man be.'^ Not a 
local, visible, personal appearing, — some demonstra- 
tion to the outward senses, — but a diffusion of light ; 
a dissemination of truth and spiritual intelligence, 
flowing everywhere, and apprehensible by the rational 
thought. 

Having thus seen what is the general nature of the 
Lord's second coming, let us turn now, in closing, for 
a few moments, to the first three chapters of the Book 
of Eevelation. This Book refers to these times. The 
events it describes belong to the present age of the 
world. They began to unfold more than a hundred 
years ago, but their complete fulfilment, with the 
results to follow, will last on for all ages. The Book 
of Revelation itself is the starting-point of the New 
Dispensation. It is the closing Book of the canon, 
placed there to point men forward, through the first 
Christian ages, to that fuller dispensation promised in 
so many of the prophets. It is a Book, therefore, 
which, in a certain (quite intelligible) sense, may be 
said to be distinctively the Book of the New Church, — 
the New J erusalem. It is so, because the New Church 
is founded upon it, and is described in it. It is so, 
again, because the New Church understands it, and 
can make use of it and explain it. 



64 



LECTURE III. 



The first tliree chapters comprise a general intro- 
duction to the Book, announcing its Divine authority, 
and invoking at length the special and conscientious 
attention of the Christian Church to the contents of 
its prophecy. He that hath an ear let him hear what 
the Spirit saith unto the churches/^ is the oft-repeated 
injunction. 

The most remarkable feature of this introduction is 
the clear and distinct declaration made with respect 
to the Trinity and Personality of the Lord. In the 
New Jerusalem we are taught to look to and to wor- 
ship the Lord Jesus Christ, — a single person, — as 
the only God of heaven and earth, as the Supreme 
Jehovah, clothed with and appearing in a human form. 
It is for this reason that the Church of the New Jeru- 
salem is called, in the latter part of the Book of Rev- 
elation, the Bride, the Lamb's wife : because she is 
conjoined in love to the Lord Jesus as the only God. 
No other church is, or ever was, so conjoined, and 
therefore no other church is, or ever was, called the 
Bride and wife of the Lamb.'' 

This idea of God, which is the true and final idea, 
the idea entertained in heaven, and cherished by the 
angels, had to be introduced to men gradually. The 
Incarnation of Jehovah, His appearance.in the world by 
the assumption of humanity. His work of redemption in 
it, His glorification of that humanity, not only as to its 
mental part, but also as to its bodily form, His ascension 
in it into heaven, and above all the heavens, thus 
taking it into the most plenary conjunction with Him- 
self, filling it with His own Supreme, Divine life, as 
the soul of a man fills and animates his body, — all 
this, we say, was an event developed in time, and had 



THE SECOND COMING. 



65 



to occur historically. Therefore it has taken time for 
men to apprehend it clearly, — to learn it thoroughly, 
and understand it rightly. But the process has 
always been going on from the first. Jehovah declared 
constantly in the prophets that there was no Saviour 
and no Eedeemer but Himself ; that He Himself would 
come to save and redeem His people ; and that the One 
so promised as coming, should be called ''The ever- 
lasting Father,^^ and " Jehovah, our Righteousness.'' 
When John the Baptist came, he came " to prepare the 
way of Jehovah,'' and to make in the spiritual desert, 
then existing, a highway for our God. 

When our Lord came, He spake to the people in 
parables ; he veiled many important spiritual realities 
under a drapery of natural thought and symbol. He 
did not clearly disclose everything relating to His 
own Divine Personality. Only once during the whole 
of His visible ministry on earth, did He treat directly 
and explicitly of this subject at all ; and on that oc- 
casion, in reply to the pressing inquiry of his disciples. 
He there distinctly declares His personal identity with 
the Father. The words are in the fourteenth chapter 
of John. Philip saith unto Him, show us the Fath- 
er, and it sufficeth us." Jesus saith unto him, have 
I been so long time with you, and hast thou not 
known me, Philip ? he that hath seen me, hath seen 
the Father ; and how sayest thou, then, show us the 
Father?" ''The Father is in Me : " * * ^ "The 
Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works : " 
* * * "I and the Father are One." 

It is hardly possible for language to be more direct 
or distinct. His Divine part was God the Father. 
His outward, human part, was the Son ; both natures 
6* 



66 



LECTURE III. 



being contained and dwelling together in one and the 
same Person. 

At another time He says to them, I have many 
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.'^ 
^ ^ These things have I spoken unto you in prov- 
erbs, or parables ; but the time cometh when I shall 
no more speak unto you in proverbs, but shall show 
you plainly of the Father/' 

That time has now arrived. The parabolic teach- 
ings of Scripture are explained. The seals upon the 
meaning of His words are taken off, and their true 
spiritual idea disclosed. And as th^ Book of Revela- 
tion is peculiarly the Book of the New Church, — the 
church in which this idea of God is, and is to be 
known and taught, therefore the Book itself opens 
with a very distinct and emphatic declaration of it. 
The Lord Jesus appeared to John in his glorified, hu- 
man form. His Divine spiritual body, and aflSrmed 
himself to be the only God : saying unto him, I am 
the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, 
saith the Lord. Who is, and who was, and who is to 
come, — the Almighty.'' It is true that the apostle 
Paul had already been moved by the Holy Spirit to 
declare that, in the Lord Jesus, the fulness of the 
Godhead dwelt bodily ; but these words seem, if pos- 
sible, to be still more explicit, announcing, as they do, 
the whole divine Trinity, centering and dwelling in 
His single person. Saying, in effect, ''I am He who 
was/^ from eternity, the Father Almighty ; I am he 
who the Son or Humanity, visible to men ; and, 

I am He who is to come," the Holy Spirit, the Com- 
forter, that was promised ; for I shed forth from My- 
self all holy and benign and regenerating influences, 



THE SECOND COMING. 



67 



and I perform all holy and benign and regenerating 
operations. Thus, ''I am the Almighty/^ the one 
and only God, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. 

And the Book closes, saying, "I, Jesus, have sent 
mine angel unto you to testify these things in the 
churches.'' Under the old dispensation it used to be, 
/, Jehovah, have sent mine angel unto you. But now 
it is Jesus that sends His angel. The Lord Jesus 
thus assuming the position and attributes of Jehovah. 

These things have long been enveloped in parables, 
in the literal sense. But as soon as the Scripture is 
understood according to the spiritual sense, all things 
in the letter which seem to favor a different doctrine, 
are seen to be fallacious appearances, moving out of 
the way like shadows, or becoming lighted up with 
new meaning, like clouds illuminated with sunshine ; 
giving forth a simple, clear, and uniform idea of God 
in one Person, and that Person manifested in the 
flesh. 

Such, then, is the Second Coming of the Lord : the 
announcement from out the bosom of His Word, of 
this great truth concerning Himself, and concerning 
all other things contained in the spiritual sense of that 
Word. Can anything be more worthy of Him, more 
worthy of His power and glory, more scriptural, more 
rational, or more spiritually useful to mankind ? 

The relation of Swedenborg to all this great system 
of Heavenly truth, is simple and clear. He is only 
the human scribe. " The servant of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. The man prepared, qualified, and commis- 
sioned by the Lord to receive these truths and write 
them down for the use and benefit of mankind. This 



68 



LECTURE III. 



is the way divine truth has always entered the world, 
by means of some man commissioned to receive and 
write it. There is no other way for it to come, and 
so it comes in this way. Wo receive the truths not 
on his account, but on their own account ; On the au- 
thority of Sacred Scripture, and in the light of their 
own clear rational demonstration. *'In thy light 
shall we see light. 

We may apply to Swedenborg, the words applied 
to John the Baptist, viz : that he was not the Light, 
but was sent to bear witness of the Light. For, 
like J ohn at the first coming of the Lord, he was a mes- 
senger sent before to prepare the way, to tell the na- 
ture and announce the fact of His Second Coming. 



LECTURE lY. 



SUIVIMARY OF THE WHOLE BOOK. 

CONTENTS : — View of the entire Book of Rev- 
elation ; Treats of the Last J udgment, and the Events 

WHICH ACCOMPANY IT ; ThE JUDGMENT TAKES PlACE IN THE 

World of Spirits, intermediate World of the Departed 
{Hades), Midway between Heaven and Hell, shown 
FROM Scripture, and occurs, therefore, out of Sight of 
Men ; Brief Synopsis of the Successive Scenes of the 
Judgment and Attendant Events, as described in the 
Successive Chapters, from the Fourth to the Twen- 
tieth. 



LECTUEE. 



After this I looked, and behold a door was opened in heaven. 
And the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet 
talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show 
thee things which must be hereafter:' — Eevelation iv. 1. 

We have seen something of the character of the 
Sacred Scripture ; the fulness of its inspiration, and 
the symbolical style of its language. The great law 
of correspondences has been mentioned, and a few ex- 
amples given of the true Christian method of inter- 
preting Scripture, namely : by inquiring for the proper 
spiritual idea meant by and involved in each natural 
symbol or thought. 

We have seen, too, what is the nature of the Lord^s 
second coming, and how that coming is effected ; to- 
gether with the new and most clear idea concerning 
Himself, communicated by the Lord, in and through 
the Word, when its spiritual meaning is understood. 
We are therefore, in some degree, prepared to come 
to the Book of Revelation and understand its con- 
tents ; for this Book, in its spiritual sense, is filled 
with the angelic idea of the Lord, and it treats alto- 
gether of the events that are connected with His 
second coming. 

The first three chapters, as we have seen, comprise 



72 



LECTURE lY. 



a general introduction, containing, among other 
things, a prolonged and varied injunction to the Chris- 
tian churches to listen to, to search the meaning of, 
and to give heed to the contents of this Book. We 
come tO"day, therefore, to the commencement of the 
great prophetic vision itself, and are to give a summa- 
ry view of the remainder of the Book. We prefer to 
present this general idea at starting, for then the 
hearer will be better able to accompany me as we pro- 
ceed ; and the different parts of the exposition will 
fall more easily and naturally into their respective 
places in his mind. We are enabled to obtain this 
comprehensive view in the light of the New Jerusa- 
lem, for in the spiritual sense, all things related here 
cluster around one single event, and are connected 
together in a most coherent and orderly series. 

There is, therefore, great unity and simplicity in the 
scheme of this Book ; and its whole plan may be taken 
in at a single glance the moment its central idea is 
mastered and retained. The principal event described 
in it, is the Last Judgment ; that great day fore- 
told in so much Divine prophecy, and here, for the 
last time, fully and circumstantially set forth. Other 
very important events are of course incidentally men- 
tioned, some of them quite fully delineated ; but they 
are all clustered about this one as accessories, either as 
antecedents, or as accompaniments, or as consequences 
flowing from it. 

The second coming of the Lord is antecedent to the 
Judgment, and is the cause of it. While the other 
events connected with it aie the consummation or 
winding up of the first Christian Age or Dispensation, 
erroneously translated in our version of the Scripture, 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



the end of the world ; followed by the formation of 
a new heaven, and the descent and establishment of 
the New Jerusalem on the earth. 

All these events will challenge their share of our 
attention as our exposition proceeds ; but as (in the 
contents of this Book), the Last Judgment is central, 
that is what will chiefly occupy our attention to-day. 
This is the key of the entire movement, rendering in- 
telligible the succession of the various parts, and help- 
ing us to understand their connection and mutual re- 
lations. 

The beginning of this fourth chapter commences the 
real movement of the Book, and we invite special at- 
tentioia to its opening words, that we may observe 
the stand-point from which they speak, and prepare 
our intelligence to understand them. After this I 
looked and behold a door opened in heaven ; and the 
first voice which I heard (as it were of a trumpet talk- 
ing with me), said, come up hither, and I will show 
thee things which must be hereafter.^' John was al- 
ready in the spirit, already under divine influence, al- 
ready in open vision, with his spiritual eyes and ears 
cognizant of the scenes and persons of the spiritual 
v^orld ; and yet, as a condition of seeing these follow- 
ing things, and beholding that stupendous series of 
holy symbols about to be unrolled, —he must go up 
higher. He must, as to his mind, be lifted up still 
further ; must be elevated in spirit yet closer to heav- 
en, to the angels, and to the Lord himself. 

Now this circumstance is highly instructive, and for- 
cibly suggests to the student of the Apocalypse that 



74 



LECTURE ly. 



he has something to do as a personal preparative in 
coming to its pages. If we would enjoy a clear and 
abiding perception of the meaning of these wonders, 
we must allow ourselves to pass through something 
not altogether unlike that experienced by the apostle. 
That is, there must be some lifting up of soul, an ele- 
vation of mind towards such high subjects, by an ac- 
knowledgment of the Lord and His truth, and of the 
reality of spiritual and heavenly things, with a desire 
to know them. 

The door opened in heaven, was a still further and 
fuller opening of John's spiritual sight and hearing, 
that he might go (as to his spirit), more distinctly into 
heaven, being for the time associated mentally with 
angels and the spirits of just men made perfect, in 
their own world, that he might see something of that 
world and of the glorious things going to take place 
there ; that, under the auspices of the Lord, he might 
afterwards write them in a book for the perpetual in- 
struction and enlightenment of men. 

It is of the utmost importance that we attend to 
these first great facts of the Book ; that we look them 
squarely and steadily in the face, and let them make 
their due and full impression upon us. 

Where was it, then, that J ohn saw this stupendous 
array of gorgeous symbolism ? Where did that suc- 
cession of mighty events which he beheld, occur? 
Where happened the sealing of the twelve tribes, the 
one hundred and forty-four thousand, where appeared 
the vast multitude which no man could number, with 
white robes, and palms in their hands ? Where was 
it that the great white throne was set, and the heav- 
enly host seen, the angels, following the Eider on the 



6UMMAKY yiETT. 



75 



White Horse ? Where was it that the war was waged 
between Michael and his angels — on one hand — and 
the Dragon and his angels on the other ? 

Was it on earth, or in heaven ? Was it in the visible 
world of men, or in the other world, commonly invis- 
ible to men, in which angels and spirits, both good 
and evil, clean and unclean, live ? Clearly, there can 
be but one answer to these questions. They were not 
seen in the world of men ; such scenes are never wit- 
nessed on earth ; the events here related are not of a 
nature to happen in the physical world, or among men 
in mortal bodies. They belong to the other life, to the 
immortal state of existence. They are such as occur 
only after men have left their mortal bodies, and gone 
into the other world. And no statements can be 
plainer or clearer than those constantly made in this 
Book, that that is where they did and do take place. 
The Apostle was shown things that were to be here- 
after. And where was he shown them ? Why, 
plainly, partly in the heaven of angels, partly in the 
heaven of good spirits, partly in the intermediate state 
of souls, — in Hades, — the world of spirits midway 
between heaven and hell ; while, too, some few open- 
ings are made, and some few glimpses given, of those 
lower regions in which the evil dwell, and into which 
the wicked and ungodly are cast down. There, then, 
is where the fulfilment of all these things takes place ; 
for, as we have said, these events are all of such a 
nature as to pertain to the inhabitants of the spiritual 
world alone, and not to the inhabitants of the natural 
world. Take up the Book for yourselves, and follow 
it from chapter to chapter, and you will see that from 
the moment John was taken up, and the movement of 



76 



LECTURE lY. 



the prophecy begins, — through the fifth, sixth, sev- 
enth, and eighth chapters, and so on to the twentieth 
chapter, — all that is told or foreshadowed is some- 
thing to come to pass among departed spirits in the other 
world. The vision descends to the earth only at the 
close, in the twenty-first afid twenty-second chapters. 
There, in those last two chapters, is described what 
is to come in the world of men, in consequence of these 
great changes, and of these grand events in heaven 
and the world of spirits. The descent of the New 
Jerusalem, — the establishment of a latter-day church 
bearing this name, unfolding the heavenly meaning of 
the Bible, testifying these things, understanding these 
things, teaching these things, and pointing men to 
the rational evidences of the Lord^s second coming, 
is the principal visible demonstr-ation that will be seen 
among men. 

It is one of those strange things which do some- 
times occur in the history of human opinion, that, in 
the popular interpretation, the general plan of this 
Holy Book has been for the most part turned exactly 
upside down. While those events which are described 
in it as occurring in the spiritual world are made to 
apply to affairs in this world, — to the movements of 
states or empires, the last two chapters, — the very 
portion which does in reality relate to this world, — 
are made to refer to heaven ; and the New Jerusalem 
is thought to describe the heavenly state of existence. 
And this, too, directly in the face of the scriptural 
aJBfirmation that the holy city is something which comes 
down from GodiOut q/'heaven, descending to earth, and 
taking up its permanent dwelling-place among men ! 

The New Jerusalem is said to come down from God 



SmiMARY YIEW. 



77 



out of heaYGii; for clear and obvious reasons : ibecause 
the principles upon which it is founded, the doctrines 
which constitute it, are truths revealed from God out 
of heaven, through His word, for the establishment of 
this church, and for the use and enlightenment of 
men, while the influences which aid in its reception 
and establislinient among men, flow down from 
heaven. 

From these brief explanations, something, we trust, 
may be learned towards understanding the prophecies 
of this Book. It is useless to follow the mode of 
interpretation too commonly adopted, of searching for 
their fulfilment in the outward world, in the events of 
the Roman Empire in its last days, in the develop- 
ments of secular history in subsequent ages, in the 
movements of great leaders and nations in our own 
day ; nor yet in great changes and overturns to come 
in the solid ground or physical elements above and 
around us ; this is the old Jewish method continued, 
and must be abandoned. We must remember the 
words of our Lord, that His ^'kingdom is not of this 
world,' ^ and His prophecies, in their interior and real 
meaning, do not relate to civil governments and political 
aff'airs, but to heavenly things, to afi'airs in the spiritual 
world, and to things affecting the life of the church 
with men. We must change our whole point of view, 
therefore, and look upon the movement as going for- 
ward in the spiritual world. 

In our ordinary moods, and in our common habits 
of thought, we are accustomed to treat the spiritual 
world and its inhabitants altogether with too much 
neglect. We leave them too much out of our account. 
In this respect we are not unlike the Chinese with 
7* 



78 



LECTURE IV. 



regard to the rest of the world. They, you know, 
regard themselves as the central people/^ dwelling 
in the middle kingdom of the earth, believing that 
all beyond their ''inner flowery land consists of 
fragmentary strips of territory, inhabited by barba- 
rians, ignorant and few. And so loe live on in too 
narrow and bigoted a frame respecting the other parts 
of God's great universe ; deeming this little world of 
ours to be about all there is, and as containing about 
everything worth knowing ; forgetting that the Lord 
hath " other sheep which are not of this fold,'' leaving 
out of view the vast populations inhabiting other 
portions of the Divine domain. Two hundred genera- 
tions of men have already lived on this earth, and 
after having had their day here have emigrated hence 
into the spiritual world. A number at least two hun- 
dred times the average population of our globe must 
therefore be now living there, gone from this earth 
alone. And were we to extend our view to those who 
may have gone thither from oiher planets, the mind is 
overwhelmed by the countless myriads which come 
into the thought. But allowing only for those who 
have gone from this world, is it not natural that the 
Apostle, to whom portions of them were shown in 
holy vision, should speak of them as '' a great multi- 
tude, which no man could number, of all nations and 
kindreds, and people and tongues ? '' 

The Chinaman, you say, must enlarge his geogra- 
phy, taking in the other populations. And so must 
we. We may no longer ignore these mighty multi- 
tudes inhabiting the various regions of the spiritual 
world. They are no dreamy shapes nor formless 
phantoms, let us forever dismiss all such vagaries 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



79 



from our minds, but substantial, living men and 
women, in spiritual bodies, imperishable and immor- 
tal. Thej are more fully endowed with all the capac- 
ities and faculties of life than they were here, 

better able to think and to will, better able to speak 
and to act. And do you suppose that such vast con- 
courses of active human beings are without a history ? 
Do you imagine that the teeming and mighty popula- 
tions of those spiritual worlds live on there from age 
to age, motionless and still, their communities in a 
state of stagnation, with no events happening to break 
the monotony, and no changes in the states of their 
society ? If so, you are mistaken. Alteration and 
change are ineffaceably written on the human consti- 
tution, and, where the Divine laws are obeyed, progress 
is the order of human development, in the natural 
world and in the spiritual world. And those popula- 
tions have a history, and have events transpiring 
among them, — som_etimes of immense magnitude, — 
more interesting, more important, and more valuable 
to know than any taking place in the movements of 
armies, or states, or empires, on our habitable globe. 

Now the Lord has caused accounts of many of these 
events to be written in His Word, in which some of 
them are very fully described, while others are less 
minutely set forth. They are given for our instruc- 
tion, and for counsels of practical wisdom, taking us, 
as it were, behind the scenes, developing to us the 
laws of mental life in actual operation, and showing 
us the issues to which they lead in the spiritual and 
eternal world. These disclosures, therefore, in the 
Book of Revelation, speak with peculiar emphasis to 
every rational and immortal soul. He that hath an 



LECTURE IV. 



ear, let liim hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
churches/^ Blessed is he that readeth, and they 
that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those 
things which are written therein ; for the time is at 
hand/^ 

The time is now. If we would understand God's 
truth as it is, and the facts of the universe as they are, 
we must admit these things into our thought, and 
treat those great communities of the other world, their 
movements and their doings, as substantial realities. 

Let us remember, then, that the Last Judgment is an 
event which takes place in the world of the departed, 
— the world of spirits, and not in the world of men. 

Paul says, ''It is appointed unto all men once to 
die, and after that the judgment. Thus we see that 
the judgment comes in that other world into which 
men go after the death of the outward body. But, as 
many, perhaps most persons, reading Scripture by the 
obscure light of the letter, are at this day still expect- 
ing a judgment, and a Great Day to come, which shall 
break up the current of the world's history, which 
shall be a great visible demonstration here in the nat- 
ural world and in the sight of men, — it may be worth 
while to read these words of the apostle again, noting 
their full meaning. He says, ''It is appointed unto 
all men once to die, and after that the judgment.'' 
How can any, then, witness such an event until after 
death ? How will it ever be possible for the world of 
men to see any such event ? Clearly, the entire scene, 
occurring, as it does, in the other world, is one which 
passes by without the knowledge of men in this 
world. We in this world can see nothing of it, can 



SUMMARY VIEW. 81 

hear nothing of it, can be sensible of nothing of it, 
except as it maybe reported to us by revelation. The 
more we examine the Sacred Scripture, and the more 
we reflect attentively upon the circumstances of the 
case, the more clearly shall we perceive that this is so. 
Every fact we know, and every part of Scripture con- 
firms it. 

Take, for instance, our Lord's parable of the tares 
and the wheat. The meaning of tares and wheat is 
similar to that of goats and sheep ; they typify two 
classes of men, one of which the Lord cannot approve, 
and which therefore must be rejected at the last day ; 
while the other class, consisting of good and honest 
men, can come into conjunction with the Lord, can 
enter His kingdom in the spiritual* world, helping to 
increase the number in that new heaven which He 
forms at His coming. The leading thought of the 
parable is that the wheat and tares are not to be sep- 
arated, that they are to remain together a long period, 
even many hundred years, — our Lord says, ''until 
the harvest.'' And in His explanation of the parable, 
given to His disciples. He declares the harvest which 
He means to be the ''end of the dispensation,'' the 
closing up of that great period of the Church, "the 
consummation of the '^ first great "age'^ of Chris- 
tianity, which should be brought about by His second 
coming.* 

The question now recurs upon the place where this 

* We know that as it stands in our common Bible, this passage 
reads as though it was at the " end of the world " that this is to 
take place. But as we have before had occasion to remark, this 
is an erroneous translation ; no end of the world is foretold in 
Scripture ; the simple meaning is, the end or winding up of the 
dispensation, or " consummation of the age." 



82 



LECTURE IV. 



happens. Where is it that the wheat and tares 
remain mingled together until the harvest ? Where is 
it that good men and evil men live on together, asso- 
ciated in each other ^s society, age after age, from the 
time our Lord was on earth till He comes again, and 
causes a separation by the execution of a judgment ? 
Surely, it is not here in the natural world. Men 
remain here but a comparatively short period at long- 
est. Wheat and tares both soon finish up their affairs 
here, and pass forward into the other world. More 
than fifty generations of men have succeeded each 
other on the stage of life since our Lord was on earth. 
Where are they ? Do wheat and tares grow together 
in heaven ? Are the evil taken up into heaven, and 
kept tlfieve until the judgment, that they may remain 
mingled with the good ? Are the good taken down 
into hell, and kept there until the judgment, that they 
may remain associated with the evil ? Surely, these 
things will not be maintained. Clearly, then, there is 
but one response that can be made to all these ques- 
tions, and that is the answer we have already given 
them in this Discourse. The good and evil remain 
mingled together until the judgment, in the world 
where the judgment occurs, — there is no other part of 
the universe where they can do so, — and that is in the 
Hades of the New Testament, — the world of spirits, 
midway between heaven and hell ; — the place into 
which all souls go immediately after the death of the 
mortal body. 

With this one great fact, therefore, as to where the 
judgment occurs, clearly proved and appreciated, we 
can go forward, and, with attention^ can understand 



sumjmaey view. 



83 



the movement of events in the Book of Eevelation, 
while without it we could scarcely understand cor- 
rectly a single verse. 

The first thing shown the apostle in the vision is 
the preparation made by the Lord among the angels in 
heaven for the execution of the judgment. The per- 
ception which the angels had of its necessity, and 
their consequent belief that it was near at hand, their 
desire and aspirations to the Lord that He would come 
and accomplish it, their arrangement into order pre- 
paratory to it, and their songs of glorification and 
praise to the Lord when they perceived that He was 
about to do it, are all described ; and though veiled in 
the usual symbolism of prophecy, are still sufficiently 
obvious in the sense of the letter. These occupy the 
fourth chapter. In the fifth chapter, the means of 
judgment are set forth. That is, the instrumentality 
by which the coming work is to be accomplished, is 
described. And as all may see, .those means are 
declared to be sacred truths coming forth out of the 
Word of God. For then is seen the Great Book, 
sealed with seven seals, which the Lamb is about to 
open by loosing the seals in which much of its mean- 
ing has hitherto been bound up. And the chapter 
closes with the anthem of joy and praise to the Lord, 
by the angels, when they knew that the Divine Book 
was to have its seals taken off, that its interior mean- 
ing was to be explained, and so, a multitude of new 
truths be disclosed from it, which should serve to 
increase the wisdom of the heavens, and strengthen 
them in goodness ; which would serve, too, to protect 
novitiate spirits, defending them against the wiles of 
the wicked ; should disperse the fallacies current in 



84 



LECTURE IT. 



the world of spirits, performing a judgment there, 
separating the good from among the evil, and shining 
down at last for the illustration and enlightenment of 
men in the world. 

Such are the contents of these two chapters. The 
movement then proceeds. 

As we have said, judgment is effected by means of 
truths drawn from Sacred Scripture ; but truths of a 
more interior and searching kind than those which men 
commonly draw from the mere letter of the Word. It 
is the spiritual sense and application of the Divine 
precepts that accomplishes this work, — the truth 
applied to the thoughts and intents of the heart. Our 
Lord says, '^the words which I speak unto you, they 
are spirit and they are life.'' And again He says, " I 
judge no man; the loord that I have spohen, this shall 
judge him in the last day.'' From which it appears 
that it is the truth alone which performs this operation. 
The Lord says tlmt'He judges no man. That is, He 
does not literally a'nd personally sit in judgment, seated 
on a throne, surrounded by great pomp, and acting 
out visibly the sovereignty of a judge. All such rep- 
resentations found in the letter of prophecy, are meant 
to symbolize the great power and majesty of Divine 
truth, coming from the Lord, and its effectiveness in 
. accomplishing the judgment of souls in the spiritual 
world. 

When we come to think carefully, and analyze the 
subject of spiritual judgment in the light of Sacred 
Scripture, we shall discover that it consists of four 
things, occurring successively, namely; 1. Exploration 
of state ; 2. Declaration of quality ; 3. Actual trial by 
truth ; 4. Execution of verdict. 

Let us consider these different stages. 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



85 



First, the exploration of state. When a Gommu- 
nity in the world of spirits is to be judged, the first 
thing done is, light is let in from heaven upon that 
community, — the light of Divine and heavenly truth. 
And in that light the angels can see the moral quality 
of that community. It discloses their state as to 
religious or irreligious life. It enables the angels to 
see and determine the general character of such a 
community, and the different classes of men which 
compose it ; enables them to distinguish the wheat from 
the tares, the sheep from the goats. This it is impor- 
tant for the angels to see, for the angels, you know, 
are the Lord's ministers in the performance of judg- 
ment. 

Secondly, the declaration of quality. This immedi- 
ately follows the discovery. When it is clearly seen 
among the angels, by examination from above, what 
is the character of a community abou.t to be judged, 
a declaration is made concerning^ it as it appears to 
them in the light of heaven. And* the Lord has caused 
those declarations to be recorded in His Word, for the 
spiritual instruction of men. 

Thirdly, the trial by Truth. The truth itself is then 
carried down to that community, to see how they will 
receive and treat it. The angels descend to them with 
the truth, making it known among them, — declaring 
it, teaching it. Thus they are tried by it. It is 
brought immediately home to them, practically and 
clearly, and they must, and will, either receive or re- 
ject it. If they are in interior goodness, they love it 
and are delighted with it ; and, joining themselves to 
the angels, are led forth out of that community as Lot 
and his family were led forth by the angels out of 
8 



86 



LECTURE lY. 



Sodom. Those, on the contrary, who are not in inte- 
rior goodness, but rather in evil at heart, do not love 
such truth ; it does not delight them ; they see no 
form or comeliness in it that they should desire it, so 
they turn away and reject it, despising it in heart, 
and despising, likewise, those who teach and those 
who receive it. 

Thus is that community judged ; the truth itself be- 
ing the instrument by which it is effected, the Lord 
endowing that truth with power and might, the angels 
acting as its agents, and the spirits themselves acting 
in freedom, making their own choices, being, in one 
sense, their own judges, by being judged out of their 
own mouths ; thus fulfilling the Scripture which saith, 

For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy 
words thou shalt be condemned.'^ 

Fourthly, the execution of the Verdict. After this 
trial by truth has been accomplished, and the good, in 
consequence, separated from among the evil, then 
come the final results to the two separated companies. 
The good follow the angels, and are taken up and in- 
structed, and become inmates of heaven. While the 
evil turn away, seeking their like and casting them- 
selves down from the presence of the angels, are cov- 
ered up in their own abodes in the lower regions of 
the spiritual world ; as Sodom and Gomorrah went to 
destruction by their own wickedness, as soon as all 
the good people (those willing to be saved) had been 
gathered out of them. 

Now these four things are what are described in 
the succeeding chapters of this Book, from the sixth 
to the twentieth, inclusive, as happening to different 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



87 



communities of spirits from this earth, congregated in 
the world of spirits, midway between heaven and 
hell. 

In the sixtTi chapter, the exploration begins where 
the apostle says, ''And I saw when the Lamb opened 
one of the seals ; and I heard, as it were, the noise of 
thunder, one of the four beasts saying, ' Come and 
see//' Here the disclosure of new truth is symbo- 
lized, and then, what appeared in the light of that 
truth is described. Thus the exploration proceeds. 
In this sixth chapter is given a summary view of the 
spiritual state of the Christian populations in the world 
of spirits ; that is, of those multitudes who had gone 
in thither from Christendom, and been detained there 
since the first coming of the Lord until His second 
coming. And the chapter closes with a declaration 
that the judgment itself is immediately at hand ; say- 
ing, For the great day of his wrath has come ; and 
who shall be able to stand ? 

In the next chapter (seventh), under the represen- 
tation of the sealing of the one hundred and forty- 
four thousand of the twelve tribes, and the great 
white-robed band beyond, we have the fact set forth 
that in those vast populations which are about to be 
judged, there will be found immense multitudes whom 
the truth can approve, and who, therefore, can be 
taken up into association with angels ; and so go to 
swell the numbers of those ''new heavens, or new 
heavenly communities which the Lord is about to 
form. 

The four succeeding chapters, from the eighth to- 
the eleventh, inclusive, are occupied with the explora- 
tion, the declaration of qualities disclosed among the 



88 



LECTUEE ly. 



protestant, or nominally protestant, populations there, 
and their experimental trial by some leading truths of 
the Divine Word. The reason why the reformed or 
protestant body is described first, is because among 
them the Sacred Scripture is freely given to the com- 
mon people, a knowledge of its literal sense is most 
widely diffused, and they are accustomed to appeal to 
its teachings as the standard of faith and practice. 
They have the most light and the most of the genuine 
elements of the church among them, and therefore are 
the first recipients of new divine truth. For we read 
in the prophet that when the judgment comes, it shall 
begin at my sanctuary, saith the Lord.^^ 
In the twelfth chapter, under the figure of the 
woman clothed with the sun, is described the New 
Church, the church of the New Jerusalem, as to the 
fulness of light, in which it is, from the Word of God, 
and as to the strength and purity of her doctrines. 
She was seen surrounded by the sun, moon, and stars, 
all the light-giving heavenly bodies, to denote the 
completeness of the knowledge she will enjoy, of heav- 
enly truths and heavenly things. This church is de- 
scribed here, midway of the scene, while the judgment 
is going on, because its truths were then promulgated 
in the world of spirits, and it is the church established 
there as that world becomes cleared of the evil. Af- 
terwards flowing down into the opinions of men, and 
so becoming a church in this world. 

The thirteenth chapter, under the emblem of the 
beast with seven heads and ten horns, describes the 
besetting sin of the protestant world, — the dominant 
evil to which it is most readily prone. More details 
will be given about it when we come to treat of that 
chapter. 



SUMMAPtY VIEW. 



89 



In the fourteenth chapter, where the apostle says, 

And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the mount 
Zion, and with Hhn an hundred and forty and four 
thousand; having- His Father's name written in their 
foreheads/' is described the new heaven which the 
Lord promised He would form at His second coming, 
and which is composed of the good found among the 
judg^ed populations. 

The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters are occupied 
with the execution of the verdict on the evil found in 
the protestant populations ; symbolized by the great 
red dragon, and his being cast down with his associ- 
ate . spirits, into the pit. A more particular explana- 
tion will be found in the eighth lecture. 

The seventeenth and eighteenth chapters, under 
the figure of the woman on the scarlet beast, describe 
the exploration and judgment of the papists or Roman 
Catholic spirits. In this view, we believe nearly all 
protestant writers have been agreed. The only mis- 
take they have made being the supposition that the 
prophecy meant the visible church of Rome in this 
world. Whereas, as we have seen, in its real meaning 
the prophecy refers to that larger and vaster con- 
course of papists, and that far more numerous and for- 
midable church of Rome, congregated in the world of 
spirits at the time of the Last Judgment. 

The nineteenth chapter, under the symbol of the 
white horse and his rider, describes certain particulars 
connected with the manner or mode of the Lord's 
second advent, with the closing up of the former dis- 
pensation, and the introduction of the new one, while 
the twentieth chapter, as may obviously appear on a 
perusal of it, is occupied with the closing scenes of 



90 



LECTURE nr. 



the judgment, and its execution upon Gentile spirits 
from the nations outside of and beyond the Christian 
world. 

Then, finally, we have, in the twenty-first and twen- 
ty-second chapters, as the result of this great judg- 
ment, and of all the other grand events connected 
with it, the descent of the New Jerusalem to the 
earth, the promulgation of all these truths here among 
men, and the establishment of a new church founded 
upon them, teaching them and explaining them, and 
through them leading men into more perfect obedience 
to the precepts of the gospel. 

Thus we see that the moment we have the right 
stand-point given us, from which to view the scenes 
of this Book, its keynote is struck. Its general 
movement from first to last is easily understood. 
All then becomes order and harmony. The several 
succeeding events readily fall into their respec- 
tive places, and the mind clearly apprehends the 
rational connection of the different parts. There is a 
simple and orderly chain of development from begin- 
ning to end, and any one portion rightly examined and 
understood, throws a rational and clear light over 
every other portion. That which commenced in the 
world of spirits more than a hundred years ago, con- 
tinues there to-day. The population of the globe has 
so increased in these later ages that 100,000 departing 
spirits pass into that world now every twenty-four 
hours ; a full regiment every fifteen minutes ; nearly a 
million a week. And this great concourse, pressing 
forward into the strong and clear light of Divine truth, 
still shining down there from heaven, and into the 
presence of angels, makes every day a day of judg- 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



91 



ment now ; for the flocking multitudes do not remain 
and accumulate there as formerly, (the causes which 
commenced the judgment serving to keep it in prog- 
ress,) but being soon explored and separated, pass on 
in a shorter time, the good to their elevated des.tina- 
tions, the evil to their own places below. 

The study of these parts in detail, which will be our 
next endeavor, will not be without its practical instruc- 
tion to us ; for the judgment here described is, as to 
its essential laws and principles, the judgment we 
ourselves must all pass through. And we can here, 
therefore, study the evil qualities and false principles 
it is necessary to avoid and shun in order to be ap- 
proved in that day of trial, and be able to stand ; and 
we can renew our covenant with the truth, imploring 
the Lord for His help to render us faithful to the dis- 
charge of its duties, and to inspire into our hearts a 
sincere and abiding love for His salvation and for 
heavenly and holy things. 



LECTURE V. 



THE OPENING OF THE SEALED BOOK. 
CONTENTS : — The 5th, 6th, and ^th Chaptehs 

TREATED ; PREPARATION MADE IN HeAVEN FOR THE EXECU- 
TION OF THE Judgment ; Opening of the Internal 
Meaning of Holy Scripture, in the Light of which 
Successive Exploration is made by the Angels of the 
States of Populations of Spirits to be judged, signified 
BY the Horses going forth from the Book ; The Seal- 
ing OF THE One Hundred and Forty-four Thousand, sig- 
nifying THE Recognition of the Good, who are capable 
of being saved, and capable of BEComNG Inhabitants 
OF the New Heavens about to be formed. 



LECTURE. 



"And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals ; and I 
heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts, 
saying. Come and see." — Hev. vi. 1. 

" Come and see ! " The invitation is to us to-day 
as well as to John then, — to turn and look ; to open 
the eyes of our minds and examine, inquiring into the 
meaning of these things, and reaping the practical 
mstruction in heavenly and divine truths they are 
capable of affording. 

We treat to-day of the Jiflh, sixth, and seventh chap- 
ters of Revelation. 

As mentioned last Sunday, the fifth chapter is occu- 
pied m describing the means of exploration and 
judgment, — the medium or instrumentality which the 
Lord employs to accomplish that work. And, as then 
said, and as may be clearly seen from the contents of 
the chapter, thos6 means are declared to be sacred truths 
drawn or sent forth from His Word. The Book sealed 
with seven seals is the Bible. And in the first verse 
of the chapter it is said that this Book is "written 
mthm" as well as on the outside, to signify that the 
Bible contains an interior, spiritual sense, or meaning, 
mthin the external or literal sense. And the Book 
was said to be sealed up, because this interior sense 
or meaning of Sacred Scripture has not been known 



96 



LECTURE V. 



until this age, when the Lord has revealed it, allowing 
it now to be made known and taught. When a roll 
of parchment is sealed up, then only that writing 
^which is on its outside, usually containing some gen- 
eral description of the contents within, can be seen or 
read. That which is loithin is entirely invisible, and 
cannot be read until the seals are removed and the 
parchment unrolled. Its interior contents can then 
be read and understood, like the rest. And so it has 
been with the Word of God. Its outside, — its letter, 

— is what Christendom has been reading for sixteen 
or seventeen centuries. That which is written within j 

— its spiritual meaning, — has not been seen, nor 
recognized, nor read, because it has been covered and 
concealed by the seals of natural idea — natural sym- 
bol and thought — contained in the letter. The seals 
are taken off, and the Book opened, when the symbols 
are explained, and when each spiritual idea meant and 
denoted by each natural idea, is disclosed and ren- 
dered clear. Men then begin to read the spiritual 
sense. The seals are said to be seven, not from any 
numerical force to be attached to that prophetical 
word, but because seven is a symbolical number, de- 
noting all, or the whole of aDything that is treated of, 
especially sacred things. Hence the number seven 
occurs so constantly in this Book, not unfrequently 
being used many times in a single chapter. 

This spiritual sense of Scripture, together with 
many of the leading truths it contains, and the means 
of learning and elucidating it from the Bible, was, as 
we have already stated and maintained, revealed and 
disseminated in the world among men about the middle 
of the last century, in the Writings of Emanuel Swe- 



OPENING OF THE BOOK. 



97 



denborg. At the same time, and by processes suited 
to that world; these truths and doctrines were promul- 
gated and diffused among spirits in the spiritual world, 
and, as before said, became there, in the hands of the 
angels, the means or instrumentality of exploration and 
judgment. The leading idea, then, of this fifth chap- 
ter is, that the Lord Jesus Christ, at His coming, 
reveals the spiritual meaning of His Word, and that 
by and according to the truths written in it. He exe- 
cutes the judgment. 

The latter part of the chapter is filled with the 
happy anthems and joyous glorifications of the angels 
on the revelation of these truths from the Word. They 
themselves were delighted with the truths ; they were 
such as they had greatly desired to know more dis- 
tinctly and fully ; and they saw the immense uses they 
would perform, — how, by means of them, the simple 
good in the world of spirits would be rescued from 
among the evil, — how, by them, the wicked crew in 
the intermediate world would soon be dispersed and 
cast down, — and how, too, the church on earth would 
be enlightened and strengthened, would be edified and 
purified by them, thus diffusing the highest and most 
lasting benefits among mankind, — their souls over- 
flowing with gladness at all this, they broke forth into 
these songs of thanksgiving and praise. 

It is easy to examine the next two chapters, the 
sixth and seventh, in connection, for they are united 
and pervaded by a common idea ; being occupied with 
a general exploration of the populations from Chris- 
tendom, then about to be judged, and a Declaration 
of the state in which the Lord and His angels then 
9 



98 



LECTURE V. 



discovered them to be, viewing them as they did in 
the light of heaven and of these new truths ; a double 
declaration, describing both the evil and the good. 

The first words of the Apostle at the beginning of 
the sixth chapter and as quoted in the text are, — 

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals/' 
The idea that the opening of these seals denotes an 
exploration by the Lord of the spiritual state of His 
church and of the Christian world — in the light of 
Divine truth as that is disclosed from His Word — is 
not new in interpretation. The symbolism is so apt 
and pertinent as to suggest readily a good deal of its 
meaning to the careful and spiritually-minded stu- 
dent of the Bible. And it has been common in the 
past ages of the church for the most accomplished 
commentators to attribute to this chapter some mean- 
ing like this. Their point of failure is, in applying it 
to visible Christendom, and the church among men, to 
the neglect as we have seen of those vaster popula- 
tions congregated in the world of spirits. Some have 
supposed it to be a brief spiritual history of the Chris- 
tian church from the apostolic age till the second 
Advent of the Lord ; others, that it describes the 
spiritual state of the church and the world as He finds 
them at His second coming. 

But to get at the core of its meaning, and have 
every symbol fall into its right place, we must follow 
the apostle into the spiritual world, and view these 
declarations as applying, specifically, to the commu- 
nities in the world of spirits, accumulated there from 
Christendom, just before the Last Judgment. It may 
be said, indeed, not untruly, to contain an epitome of 
the spiritual history of the church from the beginning, 



OPENING OF THE BOOK. 



99 



for the g-enerations of men who had lived here and 
composed that church in the centuries gone, were then 
and there assembled. And, so too, its descriptions 
may be truly said to be, in some good degree, typical 
of the spiritual state of visible Christendom at the 
Lord^s coming, for thousands, yes, millions, who had 
just departed from Christendom, were there, carrying 
all their qualities and principles of life with them. 
What, therefore, was true of those communities of 
spirits, at the middle of the last century, would also 
be measurably true of nominally Christian Europe in 
the same age, and may to-day be said to be true of it 
and of us, except so far as certain qualities or charac- 
teristics may have undergone modification or change 
in the lapse and progress of the last hundred years. 

Let us now attend to the exploration of that vast 
multitude of spirits as it is described in the sixth 
chapter. It is not difficult to perceive that the open- 
ing of the different seals, one after another, denotes 
the disclosure of successive truths from the Word, or 
of successive instalments of the truth, and, that in the 
light of each one of these successive truths, some new 
fact was disclosed, — some new spiritual quality exist- 
ing in that community, was laid open to view. Such 
is indeed the meaning. And it is a thought which 
falls so readily into the apprehension from the record 
that we have no need to prove it. 

But the signification of some of the specific symbols 
is not at first so obvious. The meaning of the four 
horses seen in connection with the opening of the 
first four seals, will not so readily appear. And we 
shall not have the space to give all the Scriptural and 
rational considerations which would make their pecul- 



100 



LECTUKE Y. 



iar signification, perhaps, entirely clear ; but we shall 
have time for a few statements which will put the 
inquiring mind on the right track, after which it can 
work out the remainder of the confirmation for itself. 

Ail the members of the animal creation are corre- 
spondences and representatives of things in man : that 
is, of qualities or characteristics or principles which 
are alive and active in his mind, and by which, there- 
fore, he is animated. And in the Bible these animals 
are employed as types or emblems of those mental 
traits or qualities. Thus, our Lord calls Herod a fox, 
to denote his wicked cunning ; Issachar is called a 
strong ass ; Dan, a serpent in the way; Naphtali is 
described as a hind let loose ; each one expressive of 
some distinctive mental characteristic. Our Lord is 
called a Lamb, to set forth His quality of Divine inno- 
cence. He is also called the Lion of the tribe of 
Judah, to symbolize the great spiritual strength, or 
power over evil, which He possesses by virtue of the 
union of Divine Goodness with Divine Truth in His 
human nature. This employment of animals might be 
indefinitely confirmed, as will readily be seen from 
every portion of the Scriptures, — from the ritual 
ceremonies of the Jews, in which certain domestic 
animals were offered to Jehovah, — in the histories of 
Old Testament and New, and in the prophetical parts 
of both. 

What, therefore, is true of other animals, is true 
also of horses ; they are frequently used for prophetic 
purposes, and, like other animals, are emblematic and 
significative of a certain element in man. And that 
element is his faculty of understanding the Divine 
Word, — that power of rational thought by which he 



OPENING OF THE BOOK. 



101 



perceives and appreciates spiritual truth. From this 
explanation of their meaning we shall get a clear and 
consistent idea from every passage of Scripture in 
which horses are mentioned. We shall see something 
of what is meant by the horses and chariots of salva- 
tion, so frequently mentioned in the Old Testament ; 
by the horses and chariots of fire, which the prophet's 
boy, whose eyes ^' had been opened, saw round 
about Elisha, similar to those by which Elijah had been 
taken up into heaven. This is the reason why the 
Lord was seen, at His second coming, in the nine- 
teenth chapter of Revelation, riding upon a white horse, 
of great brilliancy and pureness, because, as already 
explained, He now comes to enlighten the rational 
faculty of men in relation to spiritual subjects, — 
comes to communicate to them a higher meaning and 
better understanding of His Word. 

That there is some hidden and deep-laid analogy 
between the bodily act of riding and the mental act 
of exercising rational thought, may be gleaned from 
many things in the common language of men. When 
a man confines his thoughts principally to one chan- 
nel, keeping it running, too much, as men think, upon 
a single idea,* we say that he is riding a hobby. If he 
thinks too loosely, or vaguely, diffusing his thought 
over too wide a surface, we say that he gives the reins 
to his imagination. In the Greek and Roman mythol- 
ogy, the winged horse Pegasus was the emblem of 
discursive or poetic thought ; — an idea descended 
from the correspondential symbolism of an earlier 
time. Thus, in the prophet, where a darkened state 
of the church is foretold, in which there should be no 
adequate understanding of the real sense of Sacred 
9* 



102 



LECTUKE V. 



Scripture, nor any clear perception of spiritual truth, 
— it is said, ^'In that day, I will smite every horse 
with astonishment, and his rider with madness ; — and 
will smite every horse of the people with blindness/' 
While in another place, where a different and better 
state of the church is described, we read, — In that 
day, there shall be upon the hells of the horses, ' Holi- 
ness unto the Lord/ Then there is also the vision 
of Zechariah, in which four horses of different colors 
were seen by the prophet to come out from between 
two mountains of brass. And in one place where the 
restoration of the church to a faithful and happy state 
is predicted, one of the promises is, — And Jehovah 
will make Judah as a goodlj horseJ^ That the four 
horses mentioned here, mean something- connected 
with the understanding of Scripture, may be seen on 
reflection, from the circumstance that they went forth 
out of the Book. And what can go forth out of the 
great and holy Book but something relating to rational 
thought, or the understanding of truth ? How can 
we apprehend what is in a Book, but through the 
understanding ? 

So, did time allow, we might multiply indefinitely 
the Scriptural and rational confirmations of the spirit- 
ual meaning of horses and of riding. 

But with what ha^ already been adduced we shall 
be prepared to see that, under the symbolism of the 
four horses, there is described an exploration of that 
multitude as to their understanding of the Word of God, 
This is the first question to be asked concerning any 
people. What degree of light are they in ? How do 
they understand the truth ? What do they know 
about spiritual and heavenly things ? As our Lord 



OPENING OF THE BOOK. 



103 



said to the lawyer who came to Him with questions, 
Which is the great commandment of the law^ How 
readest thou ? How readest thou ? How do you 
understand that which has been ivritten in the Book? 
And this is the first question which Heaven and the 
angels ask of a society of spirits about to be judged. 
''How readest thou ? How have you understood and 
applied the things written, for universal instruction, 
in the Word of God ? What is your knowledge of 
and your intelligence in heavenly and Divine things ? 
And what are your states of life accordingly? 

The declarations here made as to what was seen as 
the successive seals were opened, are inspired infalli- 
ble answers to these questions. 

When the first seal was opened, we read, ''And I 
saw, and behold, a loMte horse ; and he that sat on 
him had a bow ; and a crown was given unto him : 
and he went forth conquering and to conquer. 

This is readily seen to be descriptive of the good 
found in that community. For, when the exploration 
began, the first thing seen by the angels was the mul- 
titude of righteous it contained ; sincere readers and 
faithful doers of the Word ; and the symbols mentioned 
in this verse are all emblematic of their state. Whiter 
clear, and glistening, is heaven's own color with respect 
to intelligence. The spiritual angels are always de- 
scribed as appearing in white, bright, and shining ap- 
parel. And the good spirits are seen clothed in fine 
linen, bright and clean ; for the fine linen is the 
righteousness of the saints. 

The loMte horse, therefore, clearly, is emblematic of 
their understanding of the Word of God ; that they 
had read their Bible with some just appreciation of its 



104 



LECTURE V. 



truths, and thence were gifted, both in faith and life, 
with some good degree of intelligence in spiritual 
things. The how which the rider of this horse carried 
in his hand, denotes the combat which such persons 
are always ready to wage against their own bad pro- 
pensities and wrong dispositions of mind. The crown 
given unto him, is the crown of life, — a token that 
all such will be saved, for they are capable of follow- 
ing the Lord when he comes to Judgment, and capa- 
ble of becoming members of the New Heaven which 
He then forms. This rider, being said to go forth 
conquering and to conquer, means their continued and 
successful resistance in temptations, overcoming their 
own evil dispositions, in the name of the Lord, and by 
means of His truth. 

We come next to the second seal. As the light 
shining from the spiritual sense of the Word increased, 
and the exploration by the angels proceeded, other 
qualities and other characters were discovered, exist- 
ing in that great community. 

' The next horse that went forth was red. This de- 
notes an understanding of the Word among those who 
are in evil. For the color red is used here in an oppo- 
site or bad sense, of which there are in Scripture 
many instances. In which case it denotes an evil 
state of the heart or will. As thus, in the prophet 
Isaiah, Come now, and let us reason together, saith 
the Lord ; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
be white as snow ; though they be red like cinmson, 
they shall be as wool.^^ And in the seventeenth chap- 
ter of Eevelation, where the unfaithful church is de- 
scribed, — the church filled with all manner of perver- 
sions and uncleanness, it is represented under the 



OPENING OF THE BOOK. 



105 



figure of a woman seated upon a scarlet-colored, beast, 
to show that the affections which animated it were 
evil. And that the state of the evil is here meant by 
the red horse, is easily seen from the words that fol- 
low; that it ''was given to him that sat thereon, to 
take peace from the earth ; and that they should kill 
one another/^ This, therefore, describes those in that 
community, who in their lives in the world had heard 
the gospel, had heard and read the Scripture, and 
therefore had come to some understanding of its 
truths ; but had not applied them to life, — had not 
repented, nor obeyed them in heart. They were hear- 
ers, and theoretical receivers, but not doers of the 
Word, remaining still in the life of their selfish lusts. 

Under the figure of the black horse, is described the 
indifferent class of persons, those who take no interest 
in spiritual things. Though in the world they lived 
in a community where the Scriptures were circulated 
and these things constantly taught, yet they acquired 
no rational knowledge of them ; their understandings 
were totally dark, when questioned with respect to 
the holy truths of the Divine Word ; and consequent- 
ly they were entirely empty of that spiritual goodness 
which those truths, properly applied, would have en- 
abled them to procure. 

Having gone thus far in the exposition of these 
symbols, the meaning of the fourth horse will be read- 
ily perceived. He was without proper color, being 
of a deathly paleness. Pallor, indeed, denotes death. 
And, it is said that Death sat on him, while Hell fol- 
lowed with him. By this is described the denier s of 
the Word ; those who mock at its divinity, and con- 
temn its truths, — in understanding, in heart, and in 



106 



LECTUKE V. 



life. All such are spiritually dead ; and because they 
are under no restraints of conscience, they live as they 
please, giving^ a loose to every passion where outward 
circumstances do not forbid. Hence it is said in the 
description which follows, that, power was given 
unto them * * ^ * to kill with the sword, and^'with 
hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the 
earth. By which are signified evil affections, or lusts 
and propensities of every kind. 

It will be seen, therefore, that here, under these 
four heads, there is a classification of the various hear- 
ers of the gospel, somewhat analogous to that made 
by our Lord in the Parable of the Sower ; the order, 
however, being reversed. For in the Parable, the 
Lord commences with the most wicked, ending with 
the good ; whereas this prophetic vision commences 
with the good, ending with the most wicked. They 
are those respectively who receive the word, — some, 
into good ground ; others among thorns ; others, a^'ain,' 
into stony places, or hardness of heart ; while the'last 
by the wayside only, rejecting* it wholly. 

The opening of the fifth seal, describes the explora- 
tion of still another class of persons, as may be dis- 
covered from what is then said,— a certain class of 
good spirits. -And when he had opened the fifth 
seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were 
slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony 
which they held ; and they cried with a loud voice, 
saying, How long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou 
not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell 
on the earth? And white robes were given unto 
every one of them ; and it was said unto them, that 



OPENING OF THE BOOK. 



107 



they should rest yet for a little season, until their fel- 
low-servants also, and their brethren that should be 
killed as they were, should be fulfilled/' 

These were simple-minded, good spirits, who, when 
they went oat of this world, were not sufficiently in- 
structed in the principles of divine truth, to be ration- 
ally clear and strong in it ; and thence, not well able 
to meet the wiles of evil spirits, or defend themselves 
from them. It was, therefore, provided by the Lord 
that they should be reserved in the world of spirits, 
in a region apart by themselves, where they were 
protected from the infestations of the wicked, until af- 
ter the judgment, when they were liberated from their 
circumscribed position and taken up into heaven. 
The place where they were retained, is the same that 
is referred to where it is said that our Lord went 
and preached to the spirits in prison, after his resur- 
rection, who had been retained there in Hades from 
the days of Noah, waiting for His coming to be liber- 
ated and taken up. It is a region in the lower part of 
the World of spirits, here called under the altar, but 
frequently referred to in the prophets as the lower 
earth or the lower parts of the earth. The earth there 
meant being the earth of the spiritual world, and not 
the material earth of the visible world of men. 

The exploration having proceeded thus far, we come 
next to the opening of the sixth seal. And at this dis- 
closure the picture becomes sad and gloomy enough. 
''And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal; 
and lo, there was a great earthquake ; and the sun be- 
came black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became 
as blood ; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, 
even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she 



108 



LECTURE Y. 



is shaken of a mighty wind/^ A style of description 
which is prolonged through the remainder of the chap- 
ter. Under this array of dark and strong symbolism, 
is set forth the spiritual state and general aspect of 
things in the world of spirits, as they appeared in the 
light of heaven when all the classes of good spirits 
were left out of view, and the evil there were exam- 
ined by themselves. We have not time, of course, for 
a minute opening of all this symbolism ; but it is easy 
to see that by it is figured a total perversion of the 
principles of life, with everything in disorder and 
trembling on the brink of destruction. The withdraw- 
al of the sun, moon, and stars, every body capable of 
shedding or dispensing heavenly light, indicates an 
entire absence of all truth, and consequently of all 
good, showing a prevalence there of a spiritual dark- 
ness which was only a precursor and foreshadow of 
that blackness of darkness into which they were about 
be to cast forever. 

They were then seen to be already prepared for the 
next great stage, namely ; for the actual Trial by 
Truth. And the final act of judgment is manifestly 
near at hand ; consequently, we read, as the finishing 
words of this chapter, ''For the Great Day of His 
wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand ? 

Here, we have a pause. And the seventh chapter 
opens with an entire change of scene. We are not 
any longer looking, through the glass of Divine proph- 
ecy, down into those lower regions. Our oppressed 
senses begin to feel relief ; for we are permitted to 
turn our eyes and follow, for a space, the direction of 
those happy ones who have been rescued from all that 



OPENING OF THE BOOK. 



109 



terrible trouble ; who have washed their robes and 
made them white in the blood of the Lamb; — who 
have not only believed and loved revealed truth, but 
have likewise practised it, thus having washed or pu- 
rified their lives by it. 

Everywhere in the prophets, where the second com- 
ing of the Lord is spoken of do we read of those New 
Heavens which the Lord will institute or form when 
He comes. And in this chapter we have an account 
of tliose who are capable of entering into those new 
Heavens, and becoming members of their societies. 
The Heavenly world increases constantly in popula- 
tion as well as the natural world, and societies there 
increase much more rapidly than communities here, 
for there they neither die any more, nor go any more 
out, but members once added remain to eternity. 
Hence the communities in heaven are continually in- 
creasing, and with immense rapidity, and, when it 
pleases the Lord, New Heavens are formed, by the or- 
ganization and arrangement of new heavenly commu- 
nities. 

In the two great classes of righteous mentioned in this 
chapter, are included all those then found in the world 
of spirits capable of being saved, because willing to 
be, and so of being organized into communities in 
which the heavenly principles of life should be freely 
obeyed from the heart, not of compulsion but from 
choice. And communities of spirits, so composed and 
organized, constitute societies of heaven. 

The one hundred and forty-four thousand said to 
have been sealed from the twelve tribes of Israel, rep- 
resent religious men who are internally good, honest, 
and true. Who, therefore, belong to some of the 
10 



110 



LECTUEE V. 



tribes of the Lord's spiritual Israel. For io the proph- 
ets Israel stands for the church, and the twelve tribes 
here meant have nothing to do with the literal descend- 
ants of the Jews. Paul says that, under the Christian 
Dispensation, he is not a true Jew, who is so outward- 
ly, according to the flesh, but they only are Jews, in 
the prophetic sense, who are so inwardly according 
to the spirit, whose circumcision is of the heart.'' 
Hence, by the one hundred and forty-four thousand 
are typified those various classes of the righteous who 
are very receptive of divine truth and goodness ; en- 
joying therefrom a close interior conjunction of mind 
and heart with their Lord and Master. Such spirits 
constitute the superior heavens in the eternal world, 
and become angels. The numbers here used, as twelve 
and one hundred and forty-four, and thousands, are not 
employed in their arithmetical sense ; they have here 
no numerical force. As we have already had occa- 
sion to state, all the numbers employed in the Word 
are symbolical, implying and describing something 
spiritual in connection with the subject treated of. 
In the historical portions of Scripture, they do indeed 
have a literal application for the most part, in addi- 
tion to their spiritual meaning, but in the prophetic 
portions they have no such literal application, and are 
to be understood in only their spiritual or emblematic 
sense. 

The truth tJiat is meant to be conveyed under the 
representation of the great multitude, which no man 
could number, of all nations and kindreds, and people, 
and tongues,'' will not be difficult to be understood, 
after all that has gone before. This is descriptive of 
that vast number who are in some reception of the 



OPENING OF THE BOOK. 



Ill 



divine truth and goodness, but in lower degrees of it. 
While they have not, when in the world, opened their 
hearts to the Lord so as to enter into that interior 
conjunction with Him mentioned above, they are nev- 
ertheless conjoined to Him in the faith of obedience, 
and are capable of serving Him in the eternal world, 
because they served Him with some degree of faith- 
fulness in this. Such do not become angels in the 
other life, but angelic spirits ; being congregated and 
organized into communities which constitute what are 
called the " inferior heavens," in the spiritual world 
According to the natural idea of the words, here used, 
that multitude seemed to have been gathered out of 
every nation, and people, and kindred, and tongue in 
the natural world. And this, indeed, is literally true 
to a considerable extent, for they came from all the 
nations and tongues of visible and nominal Christen- 
dom. But in the spiritual world, the national distinc- 
tions after a while disappear, and the differences of 
tongues vanish away ; for in that world they all speak 
the same language, - they are of one language and 
one speech. In the spiritual idea, therefore, by these 
words are meant spiritual kindreds and tongues, — 
the different affinities of goodness and truth. The dif- 
ferent degrees of moral attainment, of personal wor- 
thmess, and the indefinite varieties of virtuous excel- 
lence. For as one star differeth from another star in 
light and glory, so it is with the just after resurrection 
into the other life, there is every degree of light and 
attainments, and hence of association and happiness. 

The scenes we have been contemplating are from 
descriptions written in the Word of God. And they 



112 



LECTURE V. 



have been placed there for our permanent instruction 
and guidance. In their primary application they refer 
to certain mighty multitudes of spirits congregated in 
the other world about the middle of the last century. 
But in the principles involved in them, they are uni- 
versal; reaching in their applications to all spirits and 
to all ages ; to men in the body equally as to those 
who have passed out of the body, and to the generations 
that are here and to follow as well as to those which 
are past and gone. The judgment for us will be es- 
sentially the same as it was for them. 

Similar will be the exploration that is made. The 
same questions will be asked of us that were asked of 
them. How have we read the Scripture ? How have 
we understood and applied the word that has been 
read and preached to us ? How far have we been 
faithful in our spiritual duties ? How much knowl- 
edge of heavenly and divine things have we actually 
gained; and what degree of love or affection have we 
acquired for them ? Is our love for them sufiSciently 
rooted in practice to retain ruling possession of our 
minds when we shall come to be delivered up to our 
own interior impulses, in the unrestrained freedom of 
the spiritual world ? 

These are questions to affect profoundly every ra- 
tional mind. They go directly to the heart and core 
of the soul, touching, with a most startling precision, 
the very pivot in the will, upon which swing to and 
fro, the unutterable destinies of an eternal life or an 
everlasting death. 

Let us be wakeful, then, and work while the day 
lasts. Let us be faithful in the employment of those 
talents which have been entrusted to our keeping. 



OPENING OF THE BOOK, 



113 



Let us strive to clothe ourselves with a wedding gar- 
ment; and to enter in at the strait gate. And when 
we feel inclined to be weary or to sink in weakness, 
let us lift up our eyes to the mountains from whence 
doth come our help. Remembering that our help is 
from Jehovah, who made the heavens and the earth ; 
and that the Great Keeper of Israel is One who never 
slumbers nor sleeps. That so, we may learn some 
portion of that new and heavenly song, sung before 
the throne by the one handred and forty-four thou- 
sand, and which none but they could learn ; or, at 
least, that we may be able to join in the response and 
chorus of the great multitude, saying with them, — 
" Salvation unto our God, who sitteth upon the throne, 
and unto the Lamb,'^ forever and ever. 
10* 



LECTUEE VI. 



THE SOUNDING OF THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 
CONTENTS: — Progress of the Judgment; Fire 

FROM THE GoLDExN CeNSER, — THE TrIAL BY LoVE ; ThE 

Sounding of the Trumpets denotes the Ploclamation of 
THE Truth, and Specific Exploration of Spirits by 
Means of it ; Illustrations from Scripture ; Meaning 
of the Star Wormwood; General Explanation of the 
SuccEssiYE Trumpets, — Chapters 8th and 9th. 



LECTURE. 



And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the 
altar, and cast it into the earth; and there were voices, and 
thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. 

And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared 
themselves to sound." — Rev, viii. 5, 6. 

In our last Discourse, covering the 5th, 6th, and 
tth chapters of this Book, we contemplated the gen- 
eral condition of the great congregated multitude in 
the intermediate world of spirits, directly preceding 
the Last Judgment. Those chapters contain a record 
of what the- angels saw as existing there, when they 
looked down upon those mighty populations iji the 
light of heaven ; for in that light they clearly dis- 
cerned the characters of the different classes living 
there. 

In the chapters we are to examine to-day, we pass 
to another stage of the exploration. The text we 
have chosen marks an important step in the progress 
of this history, — opening a new scene in this great 
spiritual drama. In the exploration we studied before, 
the spirits themselves had no part. It was a heavenly 
reconnoissance, so to speak, an examination made by 
the angels from the heights of the spiritual world, of 
the multitudes dwelling beneath them ; as we might 
stand upon Mount Washington, or some similar height 



118 



LECTUEE VI. 



in the natural world, and view the populations living 
in the valleys below. The populations explored did not 
even know that the exploration was going on, there- 
fore it did not affect them ; it made no change' in the 
state or condition of their communities. 

But, as we have said, we now pass to a different 
scene. In the chapters we study to-day, the heavenly 
influences begin to descend, and begin to take effect 
in one portion of those communities. The exploration 
as here described begins to become specific and prac- 
tical. It is carried down by angels into those com- 
munities, and there applied, in those congregations 
which were to be judged first. They, therefore, now 
are described as becoming somewhat conscious of 
those influences ; and we begin here to see disclosed 
some of those results which, as the Judgment pro- 
ceeds, finally end in the disruption of those communi- 
ties, and the complete overthrow of the kicked. 

"And the angel took the censer, and filled it with 
fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth : and there 
were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an 
earthquake." 

We have already, in a former discourse, explained 
the spiritual meaning of >e. It is the natural ele- 
ment employed in Scripture to typify the flame of 
?o«e or desire, continually rising up in the human soul, 
giving warmth and animation to the affections. In 
the connection in which it is used in the text, it stands 
for that pure and holy love inspired into the hearts of 
the righteous by the Lord, through the operations of 
His spirit. 

The symbolism here, as will be seen, is borrowed 
from the legal or representative worship of the Jews. 



THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 



119 



The altar denotes the worship of the Lord. And the 
flame burning on the altar of burnt-offering was a 
perpetual emblem of that unselfish, pure, and holy 
love, from which the Lord ought always to be wor- 
shipped by human beings. While the incense or 
grateful odor rising up from the golden altar within 
the veil, was a figure of the agreeable manner in 
which true worship of the Lord, performed by men, is 
perceived in heaven; it aiiects the senses of the 
angels as a spiritual perfume or incense. In the 
Jewish worship, the priest was never allowed to light 
the censer of incenses from any other fire than that 
kindled on the altar of burnt-offering, which was 
originally kindled directly from heaven, by miraculous 
agency. 

Speaking correspondentially, according to prophetic 
usage, — all heaven worships the Lord xAthfire taken 
from His holy altar. Li other words, all heaven wor- 
ships the Lord from that pure and holy love — towards 
Him, and for good and right things— which is 
inspired into their hearts from our Lord and Saviour 
in His glorified humanity. 

When, therefore, it is here said that the angel filled 
the censer with fire Irom off the altar, and then cast 
It mto the earth, it is meant that now the communities 
below are to be brought to the trial by love, 

A communication is to be opened from heaven with 
them, and heavenly influences are to be carried down 
among them, to see how they will be affected by those 
influences. The angels will descend to them, bearing 
the truth, their hearts at the same time burning with 
that holy fire which burns in heaven, — animated and 
warmed by the zeal of a pure love for the truth and 



120 



LECTURE VI. 



for good and heavenly tilings ; and it will then be seen 
what is the love which animates those communities^ — 
whether they are in similar love, whether they can 
stand that heavenly sphere, whether they have any 
such affection for the truth, or any so pure desire for 
heavenly and holy things. 

This is indeed the great trial of the heart by the 
standard of holy truth. And where should we be, or 
where should we stand to-day, do you think, tried by 
a similar standard ? 

[It must be remembered that the earth here spoken 
of and meant as that whereinto the fire was cast, is 
the earth of the world of spirits ; the middle state or 
place between the heavens and the hells, already so 
frequently mentioned. For when a man puts off the 
mortal body and enters that world, he seems to him- 
self to be in a region somewhat like the earth he has 
just left, arising from this circumstance, — that above 
him he sees the heavens, like vast expanses in differ- 
ent directions and at different distances, glittering 
with light, while below him are those caverns of dark- 
ness, the regions and dwelling-places of the lost. 
Hence, in the language of spirits, that middle region 
of their world is commonly called the earth; and this 
mode of speaking is several times adopted in these 
chapters, as also elsewhere in the prophets.] 

After the angel had cast in the fire out of the 
golden censer, we read that there were voices, and 
thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.'^ 
These words describe the commotion which ensued in 
those communities, on the heavenly influences being 
brought down to them and rendered operative upon 
them. The influx of such love, and the promulgation 



THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 



121 



of such truth; caused great agitation and disturbance 
among them. It created a ferment. It gave rise to a 
talk, followed by discussions about these new things, 
wi^h reasonings made for and against. These are 
repi'esented by the voices which were heard. 

Tiiere then met in that world two opposing spheres 
of thought and feeling, — two spiritual atmospheres, 
charged with two contrary kinds of spiritual electric- 
ity. The pure air of heaven was flowing down and 
mingling and coming in contact with the impure air 
of a lower region. Hence, the excitement which 
ensued, — the fierce contentions that arose, the noisy 
debates that took place, the angry passions that were 
aroused, uttering themselves in loud and violent 
denunciations of the truth, — amid all which confusion 
and strife there are yet distinctly seen bright flashes 
of the heavenly light, renewing itself at intervals ; — 
all these are spoken of correspondentially in the 
prophecy, as " thunderings and lightnings,^ ^ And it is 
difficult to call up an imagery more striking, or more 
appropriate to set forth such a state of things. The 
earthquake which followed, represents the commotion 
resulting in an entire change of state in and throughout 
that community. 

Things almost the same happen in populations on 
earth, sometimes when visited by new and important 
ideas on rehgious, moral, or even political subjects. 
Thus, how violent were the agitations caused by the 
Protestant Eeformation ; and how successive commu- 
nities in Europe were torn to pieces by the wars 
that marked its early progress ! What a tempest and 
what an earthquake followed the promulgation of 
those ideas which led to the great French Revolution I 
11 



122 



LECTURE Vr. 



And our own country at the present moment offers aa 
exemplification of this spiritual law. We are, indeed, 
as a community, undergoing one species of ju'dgmeat.' 
Our institutions are being tried by the test of certain 
practical principles, in which the hearts of different 
classes of men are greatly but variously interested. 
In our case, first came the "voices," — the reason- 
ings, the discussions, the debates, the controversies. 
Then came the more violent agitations, — the mental 
"thunderings and lightnings," which immediately 
preceded the appeal to arms. Now, we are in the midst 
of the still more external and manifest " thunderings 
and lightnings " of war, with the angry strifes and 
sharp contests which it indicates and involves. And 
all this, as we may clearly see, must at length result 
m " an earthquake," which, indeed, is already going 
on. For, as the event passes, and order and quiet are 
once more restored, we shall discover that there has 
been effected, in many respects, a change of state 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. 

Now those mental laws, which are so clearly dis- 
cernible in this world, are equally operative in the 
other ; while there, in the spiritual world, their results 
are most wonderful and manifest ; where many out- 
ward impediments are withdrawn, and where every 
circumstance quickens and facilitates their operation. 
Can we at all wonder, then, that divine and heavenly 
ideas, carried down thither by angels, and sent down 
for that purpose, should cause a judgment and a sep- 
aration of classes, in those mixed communities of the 
world of spirits ? 



" And the seven angels which had the seven trum- 
pets prepared themselves to sound." 



THE SEVEN TEUMPETS. 123 

The sounding of these trumpets symbolizes the pro- 
clamation of the Truth in those communities, and the 
consequent calling together of the righteous scattered 
through and mingled with them. The law of the Jew- 
ish church, upon which this symbolism is based, is 
given m the tenth chapter of Numbers. Moses was 
commanded to make truvipets of silver for the calling 
of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps 
They were to blow with them in days of gladness, and 
on festivals, and at new moons, and over burnt offer- 
ings and sacrifices. Also, when they went to war 
against enemies that infested them, it was ordered 
that they should blow an alarm with the trumpets, 
and It was promised that then they should come into 
remembrance before the Lord their God, and be pre- 
served from their enemies. Hence they were em-' 
ployed m that manner among the Israelites, and the 
sound became familiar to the ears of the nation 
Iheir most common use was that of summoning the 
congregation together for the worship of Jehovah 
And from a knowledge of these customs, we readily 
perceive the prophetic meaning of the emblem. Thus 
in Joel, where the judgment is foretold, we read ~ 
" Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in 
my holy mountain, for the day of Jehovah cometh " 
And m one place in Isaiah it is said, - " And it shall 
come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall 
be b own, and they shall come which were ready to 

mountain at Jerusalem." And our Lord, in Matthew, 
where He speaks of His second coming, and of the 
very judgment we are now studying, says, -"And 
He shall send His angels, with a great sound of a 



124 



LECTURE VI. 



trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from 
the four winds, — from one end of heaven to the 
other/' 

We see, then, that by the sounding of the trumpets, 
is prefigured the proclamation of the truth, and the 
consequent summoning together, in the world of spir- 
its, of all those who acknowledge the Lord, and listen 
to His voice, to come forth to meet Him, and join 
themselves with those who are principled in His wor- 
ship, and who are to remain so forever. 

The correspondence of this symbol appears to lie in 
this ; — a trumpet is a prolongation or extension of the 
human voice by means of an instrument, causing it to 
be heard in parts where, otherwise, it would not be 
enabled to reach. And so it becomes, by an apt and 
strong analogy, an image of the instrumentalities which 
the Lord employs for the difiusion of His truth. He 
sends it forth in the spiritual world, by angelic agency, 
and in the natural world, by human agency, while the 
truth itself is nothing else than a prolongation of the 
voice of the Almighty, — an extension, into more dis- 
tant regions, of the original Divine utterance. 

We can see this significance forcibly embodied in 
the occurrences which took place when the Lord de- 
scended upon Mt. Sinai, in the presence of all the 
people of Israel, to promulgate the law, — that great 
summary of Divine truth contained in the Ten Com- 
mandments. In addition to the other mighty wonders 
on that occasion, we read that there was heard ^'the 
voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the 
people in the camp trembled. * * And Mt. Sinai 
was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord de- 
scended upon it in fire ; and the smoke thereof as- 



THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 



125 



cended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole 
mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the 
trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, 
Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice/^ 

Moses, and the letter of the law given through him, 
were thence to become, as it were, the trumpet of Je- 
hovah, speaking His truth, and making it known to 
the people and to the ages. 

Thus, as we see, the prophetic idea carried in this 
representation of the seven trumpets, is that of a full 
or perfect proclamation of Divine truth ; — the number 
seven denoting what is full or perfect. And from the 
connection in which it stands, we see, also, that here 
it has reference to the promulgation of the Doctrines 
of the spiritual sense of the Word, by the Lord at His 
second coming, through the agency of angels, in those 
communities of spirits that were then about to be 
judged. And, indeed, as a consequence, the procla- 
mation of that truth throughout the [intermediate] 
world of spirits. Such promulgation at the same time 
being in effect a summons or invitation to His people, 
— to the obedient and well-disposed of every name 
and kind — scattered through those populations, to 
come out from among them, and gather themselves to- 
gether under His leadership. 

In one of the prophetic Psalms it is said, — Blessed 
is the people that know the joyfal sound ; they shall 
walk, oh Jehovah, in the light of thy countenance.'' 
And our Lord declares, — My sheep hear my voice, 
and I know them, and they follow me : and I give 
unto them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, 
neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand.'' 
11* 



126 



LECTURE VI. 



But what we have thus far stated is not the whole. 
As before observed, after the angelic exploration, and 
the prophetic declaration of the qualities beheld, there 
comes the actual trial by truth. And now, these seven 
trumpets which proclaim the truth, and summon to- 
gether the Lord^s faithful ones, also try the hearts and 
the reins of the wicked in those communities, laying 
bare and describing the iniquities which there abound, 
together with the false principles of belief, or false 
maxims of life, which cover or confirm those iniqui- 
ties, thus serving to defend and increase them. This 
may be abundantly gathered from the dreadful sym- 
bolism of these two chapters, presenting a succession 
of scenes, picturing in the strongest manner the vari- 
ous elements of disorder, disaster, and woe. Each 
successive trump — every new truth proclaimed — is 
a fresh inlet of destruction. Each symbolic picture is, 
if it were possible, still more , dreadful than the one 
which went before, until at length the pit opens her 
mouth, i. e. the hell with which that community is in 
association by means of its evils, and seems pre- 
pared and ready to swallow up those who remain, with 
everything that belongs to them. It is indeed an un- 
covering of the state, with the consequent disaster, 
not unlike that which happened to Sodom and Gomor- 
rah after righteous Lot and his family had been gath- 
ered out of them. 

Space will not allow us to descend to the particulars 
of this symbolism ; an explanation of each thing would 
involve much time, and no doubt weary the patience 
of many. The meaning of every figure and of every 
clause, with the reasons therefor, may be read in the 
Writings of the Church, and to those Writings, there- 



THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 



127 



fore, we point the inquirer for them. We shall con- 
fine ourselves at present to the general idea involved, 
with a few illustrations drawn from two or three of the 
symbols. 

The Law of all this symbolism, as we have con- 
stantly maintained, is that of the correspondence or 
analogy existing between spiritual and natural things. 
Outward, visible, material objects are employed in the 
prophetic language as types or emblems of inward, 
iDvisible, spiritual things ; — as types or emblems of 
the things relating to heaven and the church, — things 
in the hearts and minds and characters of men and 
spirits. 

Hence the movements described in these chapters, 
— as of the moon and stars and mountains, and other 
objects visible in the natural world, do not mean 
actual commotions occurring in these visible bodies, 
but represent, by a strong and striking analogy, cor- 
responding movements of a spiritual nature, taking 
place in the other world. 

^ As an illustration of this law, let us take the descrip- 
tion of what happened when the third angel sounded, 
given in the tenth and eleventh verses. 

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great 
star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it 
fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the 
fountains of waters ; and the name of the star is called 
Wormwood : and the third part of the waters became 
wormwood ; and many men died of the waters, because 
they were made bitter. 

These words have been not unfrequently applied to 
some celebrated conqueror, the march of whose armies 
has been marked by destruction and bloodshed. Thus 



128 



LECTURE VI. 



Genseric, the barbarian; who in one age devastated 
some of the finest provinces of the Western Roman 
Empire,* has been pointed out as the ''star Worm- 
wood/^ Others have thought it might refer to iilaric, 
the Goth ; others, again, to Atilla, the Hun, or these 
successive trumpets to this succession of leaders. If 
writing now, such commentators might designate some 
other leader or emperor nearer our own day, as being 
this star. Such a course of interpretation, however, 
opens a wide door for the exercise of the imagination, 
and leaves the meaning of Scripture indeterminate^ 
and vague. 

From what has preceded, it will be inferred that we 
need not go off to distant countries in the natural 
world, nor search the records of profane history, to 
find the star Wormwood ; it is an existence of a dif- 
ferent order, and some degrees of the quality it de- 
notes may be found much nearer home, — even in the 
hearts and minds of many of ourselves. 

It will be remembered that the fire from the golden 
censer, cast by the angel into the earth, was explained 
to mean the carrying down of angelic love into those 
lower communities, and the consequent trial of their 
love, to see of what quality it was. And it was men- 
tioned that this trial might disclose serious discrepan- 
cies, bringing to light affections and feelings in those 
communities quite contrary to the mild and gentle im- 
pulses of truly Christian or heavenly love. So, here, 
in these words, we find described the results of one 
stage of that trial. We here see pictured one of the 
states of wrong feeling, or wicked love, then discov- 
ered and manifested. We read that this star was seen 



* African provinces. 



THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 



129 



I' hurmng, as it were a lamp/^ Prom the connection 
in which it stands, we can easily see that this burn- 
ing'' signifies the flaming- up of a wicked love, and 
not of a good one ; in other words, that it typifies a 
certain evil disposition of mind, manifested and found 
to exist in that society of spirits, — a burning zeal for 
something wrong. 

But what particular evil is meant ? What wrong 
desire, to which the human heart is prone, is here spe- 
cifically set forth ? We are told that the name of it 
is Worrmuood. But what is the meaning of worm- 
wood f What is the prophetic sense conveyed by 
that term ? Let us turn to the Scriptures themselves, 
and see if they afford us any light on the subject. 

We find it mentioned for the first time in the twen- 
ty-ninth of Deuteronomy. The people are there com- 
manded at great length, and with peculiar emphasis, 
to enter into covenant with Jehovah, to keep the pre- 
cepts of His truth, and be obedient to them. And 
the reason given for thus urging them to give special 
heed to these principles of Revealed Truth, is this ; — 
''Lest there should.be among you man, or woman, or 
family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day 
from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of 
these nations ; lest there should be among you a root 
that beareth gall and luormwood ; and it come to pass, 
when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless 
himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace though 
I walk in the imagination of my heart, to add drunk- 
enness to thirst. 

Here we see distinctly portrayed what is meant by 
wormwood. Here there is divulged to us what the 
root of bitterness is. It is that disposition of the hu- 



130 



LECTURE VI. 



man heart which leads men to accept falsity instead of 
truth. Which leads them to parry or turn aside the 
direct application of the divine precepts to them- 
selves, going out in search of false maxims of life, by 
which to live, and regulate their practice. The dispo- 
sition which refuses credence to the grave denuncia- 
tions made in the Divine Word against wicked ways, 
— saying all the time, My self indulgence cannot cost 
me dear ; I shall dwell in peace though I do gratify 
my propensities, though I do add drunkenness to 
thirst. This disposition, when it is yielded to, runs 
out into the falsification of the truth, in various ways. 
It not unfrequently quotes Scripture in a wrong sense, 
in order to fortify a wrong position, or confirm the 
propriety of improper courses. Hence it becomes the 
fruitful source of corrupt views and false doctrines of 
every kind ; — a root of spiritual bitterness. 

It is for this reason, therefore, that the Lord's people 
are here so strongly urged to give particular heed 
to the declarations of His truth, — that this evil dis- 
position might be removed from their hearts. Now, 
the sense in which the symbol loormwood is employed 
here in Deuteronomy, is the basis of the prophetic 
usage, and is precisely the sense in which it is em- 
ployed in every case where it occurs in Scripture. 

In the prophets, it is usually coupled with water ; 
and the reason of this will be quite obvious when we 
reflect that waters, when used in a good sense, mean 
truths, as was explained in our second discourse. 
They mean the maxims by which men live. They are 
pure and holy waters, if drawn from the Divine Word, 
but bitter waters, if drawn from the thoughts and imag- 
inations of an evil heart. And because the Jewish 



THE SEYEX TRUMPETS. 



131 



church had greatly falsified the truths of their Scrip- 
tures, bringing in many unwarrantable traditions to 
turn aside the pure observances of their law, they are 
thus denounced in Jeremiah, — Behold, I will feed 
this people with icormicood, and give them water of 
gall to drink.- ^ And in another place in the same 
prophet, — ''Thus saith Jehovah concerning the 
prophets ; Behold, I will feed them with loormioood, 
and I will make them drink the water of gall ; for from 
the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth in 
all the earth. 

To drink the water of gall, is, of course, to imbibe 
these false maxims of life, and to live by them. And 
in Amos, the Jewish church is charged with turning 
the judgments of Jehovah into wormwood. 

So we might follow this mode of expression through 
the Scripture, wherever it is used in the prophets, 
in the Psalms, and in Proverbs, and we should see 
that in every instance it will yield a similar clear and 
consistent meaning-. And we can come back to the 
star which is called wormwood in the Book of Revela- 
tion, better prepared to understand its signification, 
as well as to extract the lessons conveyed by this de- 
scription. 

It is said that this star fell upon the rivers and the 
fountains of ico.ters ; — a mode of expression that will 
be readily understood in the light of the explanations 
now given. For, as by rivers are denoted the maxims 
of religious life current in a community, or, in other 
words, the streams of religious opinion flowing through 
it, and by the fountains of waters, are meant the 
sources from whence those opinions are drawn, — we 
can see that on them is precisely where this worm- 



132 



LECTURE VI. 



wood would naturally fall. For this disposition of the 
carnal or unregenerated heart to falsify the truth, of 
course, the moment it begins to act, falls upon the re- 
ligious thought of the community, exercising itself in 
vitiating and corrupting its opinions. And it makes 
its assaults upon the fountain of those opinions, by in- 
ducing misinterpretations of Scripture, the original 
source from whence those opinions are drawn. If we 
look back to the past history of the church in its sev- 
eral branches, Greek, Roman Catholic, and Protestant, 
and also to the world by which the church has been 
surrounded, we shall see to how great an extent this 
disposition has prevailed among mankind. Sometimes 
denying the efficacy of the truth altogether, but often- 
er, stepping within the pale of the nominal church, 
choosing to exercise itself there, disturbing the pure 
waters of Christian teaching, by the hatching of new 
opinions ; sometimes erecting a very subordinate sub- 
ject into a matter of the first importance ; sometimes 
substituting the traditions of men, for the clear utter- 
ances of the Divine Word. Bat oftener than all, en- 
shrining itself in the hearts of individual members, in- 
ducing them to look through a false medium upon the 
requirements of duty, and leading them to repose with 
confidence in the external observances of the church, 
or' in the abstract exercises of a merely intellectual 
faith, for salvation. Operating in the minds of differ- 
ent persons in an indefinite number of difierent ways, 
but having, all the while, as its essential characteris- 
tic, the endeavor to turn men aside from simple obe- 
dience, to the precepts of truth in the practical con- 
duct of life. 

It is added here, — ''And many men died of the 



THE SEVEX TEUMPETS. 133 

waters, because they were made bitter." How true 
this is ! Many spirits in that community, then about 
to be judged, had brought themselves within the 
power of " the second death " by imbibing and living 
from false maxims of life or duty. The spirits hero 
spoken of were already dead as to their mortal bodies, 
and hence the word death as applied to them, means 
spiritual death, or as it is elsewhere called "the 
second death," -the death of the soul, by its perma- 
nent union with the spheres and the regions of evil 
But what was true of them is true of men in all ages 
In all ages men have died of such waters : in all a°o-es 
men have perished, as to their souls, by imbibing and 
living from false and selfish maxims of life. The root 
of bitterness is planted in every human heart It 
springs up there from seed sown by the evil one It 
flourishes to some extent in us all. But as we are 
free moral agents and rational beings, the degree to 
which It flourishes will depend upon ourselves. When 
we find such a disposition operating within us, coun- 
selling the indulgence of selfishness, to the neglect 
of the smiple truth, which demands righteousness of 
life, - we must endeavor to suppress it, -we must 
weed It out of our garden, for we read that every 
plant which our Heavenly Father hath not planted 
must be rooted up ; and this one, if allowed to grow 
will turn our waters of life to bitterness. For if 
mdulged, it gives us at length a relish for false 

T^'T^T "^^^"^ ^'^^'''^y tJ^e evil wisdom 

ot selfishness, of personal emolument, and worldly 
success, - and a distaste for the simple truths which 
consti ute the pure waters of the river of life, clear as 
crystal, flowing out from the sanctuary of the Lord - 



134 



LECTURE VI. 



from the throne of God and of the Lamb, from the 
Inspired Divine Word itself. 

We have not time to explain the other symbols. 
But enough has been given to exhibit the method and 
law of interpretation. Under it the other symbols can 
be made equally plain. Each trumpet as it sounds 
discloses some new disorder found at work in the 
minds of the evil parts of that community. The 
meaning of these things, the spiritual sense of Sacred 
Scripture, the doctrines of the New Jerusalem, are 
not matters of the imagination ; they are not left to 
conjecture ; they are not affirmed on human authority. 
Each thing is declared on Divine authority. It is the 

Lord^s own commentary upon His own Book, the 

prolongation of the Divine Voice, uttering itself 
through the letter of the Word, — • the declarations of 
the Bible itself in regard to its own meaning. 

And hence it is a system of interpretation that 
cannot change. It is the absolute system and must 
last forever. It is the way in which the truth is 
understood in heaven, and has been revealed to bring 
about unity of belief and concord of opinion in the 
church on earth. For we read that ^^they shall see 
eye to eye when Jehovah shall bring again Zion ; 
and that the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the 
earth as the waters cover the sea.'' It constitutes the 
test, therefore, to which all other systems are to be 
brought, and the standard by which they are to be 
judged. 

But why are these things promulgated now ? Why 
is the spiritual sense of the Word revealed, and why 



THE SEYEN TRUMPETS. 



135 



are the principles on which the judgment is effected, 
made known to men ? 

It is on account of their practical bearing. It is 
that men may see what in reality are the demands of 
heavenly purity in the other life, and so prepare them- 
selves for them here. It is now the privilege of all, 
if they choose, to submit to the judgment before they 
leave the body. They may,^ of themselves, if they 
will, bring home the Trial by truth, as carried to those 
communities, to their own characters ; to their own 
hearts and lives. The same truths which effected 
judgment there will effect it here. And in the light 
of these things recorded in the Revelation, we can 
search our own dispositions and purposes, and see 
what it is necessary to remove, and, with the help 
of the Lord, we may put them away. 

It is in this way that the New Jerusalem is to 
descend. It is in this way that the church on earth is 
to become purified, and the kingdom of universal peace 
be established ; the glorious age for the church, so 
frequently foretold in the prophets, be realized ; when 
the way of life becomes plain, and the obstructions 
existing in human character, to the inflowiDg of the 
Lord's goodness and mercy, shall be moved out of the 
way. 

'^No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast 
shall go up thereon ; it shall not be found there ; but 
the redeemed shall walk there ; and the ransomed of 
Jehovah shall return, and come to Zion with songs 
and everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall 
obtain joy and gladness ; and sorrow and sighing shall 
flee away.'' 



LECTURE YII. 



TESTIMONY OF THE TWO WIT^^ESSES. 

CONTENTS: -The 10th and 11th Chapters con- 
sidered ; The '^Mighty Angel represents the Lord 
Himself ; The Little Book in His Hand open signi- 
fies DOCTRLNE concerning HimSELF NOW EXPLAINED. In 

these two Chapters are set forth the Truths them- 
selves BY WHICH Trial or Judgment is made, — the 
Standard to which Human Spirits are brought in the 
Eternal World. The Two Witnesses are the Two 
Grand Truths of all Eeligion, — Doctrine concerning 
God and Doctrine concerning Life, or Man's Duties. 
Illustrations from Scripture. 



LECTURE. 



" And I saw another mighty Angel come down from heaven, 
clothed with a cloud ; and a rainbow was upon his head, and his 
face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire ; and he 
had in his hand a little book open : and he set his right foot upon 
the sea, and his left foot on the earth, and cried with a loud 
voice, as when a lion roareth : and, when he had cried, seven 
thunders uttered their voices/' — Rev, x. 1, 2, 3. 

The subject, this evening, is the Two Witnesses, 
and the Testimony which they utter ; but we begin 
with the preceding chapter, because its contents are 
closely connected therewith ; the idea being continu- 
ous from one chapter to the other. 

We are to remember that the scene is laid, as here- 
tofore, in the world of spirits ; and the general sub- 
ject treated is the Judgment, still proceeding. We 
have already contemplated that event in some of its 
stages. We have witnessed the opening of the Book, 
and the disclosure of new and more important spirit- 
ual truths therefrom, which, in the hands of the 
angels, became the means of Judgment. We have 
followed the exploration made by their light, and have 
heard the heavenly declarations as to the spiritual 
qualities of some of the populations about to be 
judged. At our last meeting, we proceeded one stage 
farther, and began to contemplate those communities 



140 



LECTURE VII. 



of spirits, as they appeared after the heavenly influ- 
ences had begun to descend to them, and take efiFect 
among them. We commenced, indeed, to behold 
something of the actual Trial by Truth, and to wit- 
ness some of the results to which it gave rise. Those 
results were depicted by the symbolism used to 
describe the things which successively followed the 
sounding of the first six of the seven trumpets. We 
have seen that the trial developed qualities existing 
there, quite contrary to the truth and to heavenly 
love. 

We come now, to-day, to the sounding of the 
seventh and last trumpet, and this subject comprises 
the contents of these two chapters. The single idea 
we have to contemplate in studying them, is this — 
here is described the truth by which those' communi- 
ties were tried. Here are given the Doctrines which 
formed the standard of exploration and judgment. In 
the tenth chapter, by the little book seen in the angel's 
hand, is described the great central truth of the DiVine 
Word, — that concerning the being and attributes of 
God. While, in the eleventh chapter, under the 
name of tivo witnesses, there are set forth the two 
grand truths of all religion, which bear the Lord's 
testmiony among all people, and in every age of the 
world; namely, — Doctrine concerning God, and 
Doctrine concerning life, or man's duty. These are 
truths which have a practical interest for us, and the 
unfolding of some of the beautiful and striking imagery 
of these chapters, cannot fail to instruct and enlighten 
us all. 



To repeat the text : — 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 



141 



And I saw another mighty Angel come down from 
heaven, clothed with a cloud ; and a rainbow was 
upon His head, and His face was as it were the sun, 
and His feet as pillars of fire : and He had in His hand 
a little book open : and He set His right foot upon the 
sea, and His left foot on the earth, and cried with a 
loud voice, as when a lion roareth : and when He had 
cried, seven thunders uttered their voices/' 

It will not be difficult to perceive that/' the mighty 
Anger' spoken of here, is the Lord Himself The 
description of His appearance is similar to that given 
of Him in the first chapter of this Book, and similar, 
too, to the description by the prophet Daniel, when 
He appeared to him. Under the Jewish Dispensa- 
tion, the Lord always appeared to the prophets and 
Beers of that church, by means of an angel ; that is, in 
and through an angel ; and the angel so employed 
was called the Angel of Jehovah. Hence, the Lord 
Himself is sometimes spoken of in the Scripture as an 
Angel ; but always accompanied by some expression 
by which it may be perceived and known who is 
meant. Thus we read of the Angel of His Presence, 
of the Angel of the Covenant, and here He is called 
'' a mighty Angel,'' while the description of His Per- 
son is the same as that elsewhere given of the Lord. 

He had in His hand a little hook open. We have 
already seen what was meant by the great Book with 
the seven seals, viz : that it was the Bible, the Re- 
vealed Scripture, or Word of the Lord. And it will 
not be difficult to perceive that a little book, in this 
connection, is significative of some portion of the 
Bible, or of some important teaching of Divine Truth. 



142 



LECTURE VII. 



As already stated; it represents the Divine Word with 
respect to the great central truth contained therein ; 
— that concerning the Being and attributes of God. 
For, as all may see, the truth that there is a God, and 
then what are His attributes, or qualities and charac- 
teristics, is the first great subject of all Divine Reve- 
lation. Besides, the fact that this little book was 
held in the hand of the Lord, under so striking and 
remarkable a manifestation as is here presented, may 
help us still further to see that the truth here symbol- 
ized and meant, must be Doctrine concerning Himself. 
The more the entire representation is examined in the 
light of correspondences, the more will this idea of its 
meaning impress itself on the mind. All the sur- 
rounding tokens concur in pointing this out. 

We have already explained, in a former discourse, 
that, in the Book of Revelation, and in this New Dis- 
pensation, the Lord communicates to men a new and 
clearer idea concerning Himself. We explained also, 
to some extent, what this idea is, namely, that, in the 
Lord, dwells the fulness of the Godhead, bodily ; that 
there is but one Divine Person, our Lord and Saviour, 
who has all power in heaven and on earth, to whom 
we are to look, and upon whom we are to call, and 
whom we are to worship. He assumed humanity, 
and came into the world, clothing His unsearchable 
Divinity in a visible form, that He might save men, 
and that they might have a distinct and apprehensible 
form to look to and to love. In Him, therefore. 
Divinity, and a Humanity glorified and rendered 
divine, exist together, as soul and body exist together 
in man, one and inseparable ; the indwelling Divinity 
being called the Father, and the assumed Humanity 
being called the Son. 



THE TWO WITNESSES, 



143 



That this doctrine is now explained^ and no longer 
left a mystery as in the past ages of the church, is 
seen from the fact that the book was open in His hand, 
and no longer sealed up, as the Bible was at the 
beginning of the vision. We also mentioned before 
that this idea of the Lord, though declared in the 
prophets from the first, has fallen into the ideas of men 
only gradually, as the thought*of the church and of the 
ages has been progressively prepared to receive it. 
The Lord told his disciples that the time would come 
when it should be made known. But he said to them 
that they could not bear it then ; that he had veiled it 
to them, speaking in parables, yet the time would come 
when he should no longer speak to them in parables, 
but would show them plainly of the Father ; that is, 
of his own Divinity, and of His Personality and attri- 
butes. The fulfilment of all this is here indicated. 
The revelation of the clear truth concerning the great 
mystery of the Godhead is here most distinctly set 
forth. And hence a little further on, in the seventh 
verse, we read, that " In the days of the voice of the 
seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mys- 
tery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to 
His servants the prophets.'^ This, therefore, is the 
first great truth which the trumpet of the seventh 
angel proclaims, — the time to which the prophet 
Zachariah refers when he says, In that day, the Lord 
shall be One, and his Name one.'^ He shall be 
thought of as one, and spoken of as one, in His 
Church : and no longer as three, as has been the case 
in the past ages of the church. Fulfilling also the 
time dimly foretold by Paul, in fifteenth of First 
Corinthians, where he says, — ''And when all things 



144 



LECTURE VII. 



shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also 
himself be subject unto him that put all things under 
him, that God may be all in all.'' Not that the Lord 
himself would undergo any change in the future, — 
for he is unchangeable, but that the church herself in 
due time, as she became more and more subdued to 
the obedience of her Divine Master, would come to 
view him differently ; *in the light of further truth 
communicated to her, would come at length to behold 
him as He really is ; no longer regarding, as hereto- 
fore. Son and Father as two separate — or even dis- 
tinct—persons, but seeing them to be only the names 
of two essential elements of being existing in one and 
the same Person, — God indeed— being the all 
in all. 

And this same apostle, only a few pages before, 
speaking of himself and fellow apostles, says, For, 
now we know [only] in part, and we prophesy in 
part ; but when that which is perfect is come, then 
that which is in part shall be done away.'' Thus do 
the Scriptures everywhere look forward to and prepare 
the way for a clearer Revelation of truth from the 
Word, a new and fuller dispensation of light and life, 
to be fulfilled in the new Jerusalem. 

The voice from heaven said unto John, — Go, take 
the little book which is open in the hand of the 
angel." 

This is what all heaven is saying to us to-day. " Go, 
take the little book that is open." Receive this great 
Doctrine concerning himself which the Lord has now 
caused to be explained and made clear." And how 
anxious the angels are that it should be received by 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 



145 



men ! How much they desire it ! It is the idea 
according to which they conduct all their worship. 
It is the Doctrine or View of Him which reigns 
throughout all heaven. And they are in the constant 
wish and desire that men should regard and acknowl- 
edge Him, as they do, as the only God of heaven and 
earth ; that thus earthly worship may come to corre- 
spond to heavenly worship ; that the Lord may be 
able to draw nearer to men spiritually, and bless them 
to a greater degree ; and that the Lord^s will may 
begin to be done on earth as it is done in heaven. 

And the mighty Angel, — i. e., the Lord Himself. 
— said to John, — To^ke it, and eat it up,^^ — Take 
it, and eat it up ! This is the Divine injunction 
addressed to us to-day ; — addressed to the Lord^s 
church in all future time. He desires to be acknowl- 
edged by men in his true character, as He really is. 
The Doctrine is to be eaten and digested spiritually. 
It is to be received and appropriated. It must be 
received into the understanding and appropriated by 
the will : and thus applied to nourish and sustain the 
spiritual life. It must be turned into bread, — into 
living bread, for it cometh from Him, and is truly 
meat indeed, to the soul. 

The reason why this little book is said to be sweet 
to the taste, but hitter in the digestion and appropria- 
tion, is, because, like all other divine — and like all 
other spiritual and heavenly truth, it is more pleasant 
as a merely intellectual acquisition, than it is as a 
practical precept. When introduced into the thought 
it may not be repugnant. There is a certain satisfac- 
tion in the acquisition of new and clear ideas on ifn- 
portant subjects. The desire for knowledge is grati- 
13 



146 



LECTURE VII. 



fied by it ; and the understanding experiences a cer- 
tain expansion and exhilaration from the reception of 
new and remarkable thoughts. The bitterness comes 
from the attempt to apply spiritual truths in practice. 
We then find that we have in our hearts many disor- 
derly propensities which render the practice of the 
truth difficult and distasteful. When the children of 
Israel, on leaving Egypt, came, on the first day's jour- 
ney, to the waters of Marah, they found them hitter, 
which was to signify that the divine maxims of life, by 
which they would be required to walk, would be dis- 
tasteful to their natural inclinations. It is so with us 
all. And the reason why this true Doctrine concern- 
ing the Lord, is set forth as bitter in appropriation, is 
because, when received practically, it involves self- 
denial ; it involves taking up the cross, and following 
Him in the regeneration. It involves obedience to 
His precepts, — the giving up of our old, selfish wills, 
and the doing of His will. We are called upon to go 
forward in His strength, and overcome even as He 
overcame. Hence there is no difficulty in perceiving 
wherein lies the bitterness of reception, which comes 
as this great spiritual truth descends, from, the head, 
and progressively takes effect upon the things of the 
interior life, — upon the heart, and upon the actual 
conduct. 

We read that this mighty Angel,'' who is the 
Lord Himself, ''cried with a loud voice, as when a 
lion roareth." This is a form of representation fre- 
quently made use of in Scripture, concerning the Lord. 
In the description of Him in the first chapter of Reve- 
lation, it is said that He spake with " a great Voice, 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 



147 



as of a Trumpet; and elsewhere it is declared that 
His voice is like the sound of many waters. And so 
in Jeremiah, it is prophesied, '^The Lord shall roar 
from on high, and utter His voice from His holy habi- 
tation ; He shall mightily roar upon this habita- 
tion ; He shall give a shout, as they that tread the 
grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth; a 
noise shall come even to the ends of the earth/' 
(xxv. 30.) And in the third chapter of Joel, — The 
Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice 
from Jerusalem ; and the heavens and the earth shall 
shake. 

These expressions in the letter, are no doubt in- 
tended to impress on the natural mind and heart, a 
deep sense of the Divine majesty and power ; and the 
great danger there is in offending against them ; but 
in the spiritual idea, they are expressive of deep feel- 
ing or emotion on the part of the Maker and Saviour 
of men. The roar of the lion, which is the loudest 
sound in the whole range of animated nature, is a cry 
uttered when the animal is moved by some vivid sen- 
sation or strong impulse. And men are disposed to 
utter themselves loudly, when strongly moved in their 
feelings. Hence the most forcible symbols that can 
be found in nature, are chosen to set forth the depth 
and power of the Divine emotions, that men may, from 
correspondence, be impressed with some idea of them, 
and that that idea, wholly inadequate as it must of 
necessity be, may yet be sufficiently correct, as far as 
it does extend. Now, as we know, the Lord is called 
the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and the cry described 
in the text, as being uttered by Him on this occasion, 
is one expressive of deep lamentation or sorrow. 



148 



LECTURE yil. 



growing out of a strong desire or love. Every one 
familiar with the themes of natural history, is well 
aware of the almost invincible repugnance which the 
lion feelS; to relinquish the prey which was, or which 
seemed to be, already within his grasp ; and the loud- 
ness with which he is disposed to utter himself, when 
it is removed from him. And this has been employed 
in the prophets to set forth the yearning which the 
Lord has towards men, the disinclination he feels in 
having them drawn away from Him by the evil one, and 
the bitter disappointment His tender love suffers when 
deprived of that spiritual conjunction with His church, 
which He so much desires and seeks. He longs to have 
them look to Him, and love Him, and receive Him as 
He is. And if these infinite emotions of our Lord and 
Eedeemer, our Creator and Saviour, were to be ex- 
pressed audibly, — in a manner at all adequate, or at 
all corresponding to them, they would utter them- 
selves in the loudest tones it is possible to conceive 
of, giving forth, indeed, volumes of sound that would 
shake our whole material atmosphere, the heavens 
and the earth. 

The figure, then, which we are here examining, 
shows this, — that the Lord felt grief at the time of 
the judgment, that so many men — being in evil — 
were lost to Him, that so many even of His nominal 
church, were found, at the last trial, to turn away 
from Him ; and, also. His strong desire that spirits 
and men shall receive Him as He is, according to the 
new and clear truth He now reveals concerning Him- 
self, that so, in future. He may be able to draw nearer 
to them, bless them more fully, and save them, — both 
in larger numbers, and to higher degrees of spiritual 
attainment. 



THE TWO witnp:sses. 



149 



Listen now to the last words of this text. And 
when He had cried, seven thunders uttered their 
voices.'^ This is one of the most beautiful and sig- 
nificant metaphors in the whole range of prophetic^ 
language. The natural idea of thunder is that of a 
heavenly noise, — and many thunders would be a pro- 
longation of the sound, rolling along through succes- 
sive regions of the sky. It is here employed to typify 
the lastiug and profound sympathy with the Lord, 
which all heaven feels, in these strong emotions of 
His towards the church, and towards men. They par- 
take of His love, and of His desire in this respect. 
And they are here represented as responding thus to 
the Divine Voice. For, as in the natural world, any 
loud or violent sound, like the roar of a lion, would be 
heard repeating itself as it went forth among the val- 
leys and hillsides, in a succession of reverberations, 
growing more and more distant as it rolled along, — 
so, the correspondential idea here carried, is that of 
the loud tones of the Divine Voice, waking thus the 
echoes of the Spiritual World, and calling out" from 
those heavenly communities, — as it rolls along, far 
away among the hills and valleys of the heavenly- 
world, through their mighty and unnumbered popula- 
tions, — responsive accents, filled with sympathy, and 
expressive of the fullest consent and agreement. 

It is, indeed, the whole heavenly world, described 
as responding to or reechoing the sentiments and feel- 
ings which fill the heart and animate the mind of their 
beloved Lord and Master. 

We have thus examined the tenth chapter, and in 
so doing have prepared ourselves to understand in 
13* 



150 



LECTURE yil. 



shorter compass, the contents of the eleventh, in 
which the Two Witnesses are spoken of. That it is 
the Truth itself which bears witness or gives testimo- 
ny, and which is therefore prophetically called a wit- 
ness, falls readily into the reason, besides conforming 
to abundant Scripture usage. Hence, our Lord Him- 
self, who was a perfect embodiment and exemplar of 
the whole Divine truth, in his own person, so as to be 
called the very truth itself, for the same reason is 
called also, — ^^ The faithful and true Witness.'' 
(Rev. i. 5.) 

As already observed, these two witnesses mean the 
two grand Truths of Religion which the Lord has or- 
dained to bear testimony of Him in all ages, before all 
the earth, viz : first. Truth concerning God, and se- 
condly. Truth concerning Man. The first of these we 
have been speaking of while explaining the meaning 
of the 'kittle book open in the AngeFs hands. And 
as we examine the subject carefully, we shall perceive 
that all Divine Revelation arranges itself under these 
two heads. Everything contained in the Bible relates 
to one or the other. Either to the Divine Being, his 
government, his character, his attributes, his provi- 
dence, his operations, his works of redemption and 
salvation ; or else, to Man, his creation, his being, his 
condition and wants by nature, his destiny, his rela- 
tions to his Maker, his duties, and the means of his 
salvation. This analysis exhausts the circle of theol- 
ogy. There is no topic in the whole range of relig- 
ious inquiry, but refers itself at once to one or the 
other of these two Heads. 

These things reappear constantly throughout the 
Bible. The Law, given through Moses, containing 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 



151 



the truth then revealed, and summed up in the ten 
commandments, was declared to be the perpetual 
''witness established between God and His people. 
This Law, as you all know, was written on two tables 
of stone, one being for God and the other for man. 
One containing the duties we owe to the Lord, the 
other containing the duties we owe to the neighbor. 
And in Deuteronomy, where the Law was summed up 
by Divine command in the shortest possible compass, 
it is stated under these two heads, — a command to 
love the Lord supremely and with all the heart, and 
another, to love the neighbor as ourselves. And our 
Lord Himself, in the gospel, reaffirms these two grand 
truths, as containing the sum and substance of all 
Religious Teaching, saying to His disciples, that on 
these two hang all the Law and the Prophets/' 

For this reason also it was made a statute of their 
civil code, that no man should be put to death except 
on the concurrent testimony of at least two witnesses ; 
and the necessity of such a testimony became a 
common saying. When the two tables were laid away 
in the ark, they were named tables of loitness ; the ark 
which contained them was called the ark of the testi- 
mony ; and when the priest entered behind the veil, 
into the holy of holies where the ark was deposited, it 
was called going in unto the testimony. And over the 
ark were placed two cherubim, to symbolize the Divine 
Presence, and as if to watch and to guard. 

So those tables, with the truths which effect con- 
junction between God and man written on them, were 
the two witnesses which bore the Divine testimony in 
all the ages of the Jewish church. It was also cus- 
tomary for them to speak of their whole Word in this 



152 



LECTURE YII. 



twofold manner, summing the Books which contained 
it under the two heads of Law and Prophets. And 
now, when the Divine Word is complete, we have it in 
the form of the Two Testaments, or Witnesses, the Old 
and the New. 

We have already seen how much the symbolism of 
the Book of Eevelation is based upon the divinely 
given statutes of the Jewish Law, and also here, when 
treating of these two witnesses, the Apostle contin- 
ues, — ''And the temple of God was opened in 
heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of 
His testament/^ — or testimony. In other words, the 
ark of Ms two witnesses, — the ark containing the two 
tables of the Law. 

Thus, from a careful observation of the things con- 
tained in the literal sense of Scripture, the truths of 
the spiritual sense are clearly and rationally confirmed ; 
and we see distinctly who, or rather what, the Lord^s 
Two Witnesses are. 

[Because these two witnesses are spoken of as 
prophets, it has been conjectured by some, that some 
two personal prophets are referred to, who in the 
latter days shall return to the earth, declaring the 
truth anew ; and Moses and Elias, because they came 
and stood on the mount of transfiguration with our 
Lord, are sometimes designated as probably the two. 
Others suppose that there are to be two future proph- 
ets raised up at that time. 

But as men come to cast off first natural impres- 
sions, and reflect in an elevated manner concerning 
the nature of Divine Truth and the character of the 
Eevealed Word of God, they will cease giving it these 
limited applications to men and things, clearly per- 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 



153 



ceiving that in its essential meaning it must of 
necessity rise above merely local and personal consid- 
erationS; and express broad general principles and 
laws, reaching everywhere, universal in application, 
and enduring forever. It is quite common for the 
prophetic language of Scripture to personify certain 
principles of truth, as well as certain spiritual qual- 
ities, for the sake of vivid representation, and here 
these two great truths are spoken of as prophets, in 
accordance with an extensive Scripture usage. That 
no two persons are meant may be clearly seen from 
what is said of these witnesses in the prophet Zech- 
ariah. It is written in the fourth chapter. The prophet 
was shown a vision in which was represented some- 
thing of the future glory of the Lord^s kingdom. 
Besides other things, there were seen standing beside 
the golden candlestick with seven branches, ''two 
olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, 
and the other upon the left side thereof. And after 
the Angel had explained in a measure some portions 
of the vision to him, the prophet says, ''Then 
answered I, and said unto him, what are these two 
olive trees, upon the right side of the candlestick, and 
upon the left side thereof? To which, it seems, the 
angel gave him no answer. So the prophet repeats, — 
" And I answered again, and said unto him, what be 
these two olive branches, which, through the two 
golden pipes, empty the golden oil out of themselves ? 
And he answered me and said, knowest thou not what 
these be ? And I said. No, my Lord. Then said he, 
These are the two anointed ones, that stand before 
the Lord of the whole earth. 

On a mementos reflection, we can see that these 



154 



LECTUPwE YIT. 



cannot be persons. For no two men could hold so 
important a relation. The Lord's kingdom is univer- 
sal, extending everywhere, and reaching through all 
ages. Hence any function performed by individual 
men must be limited and ephemeral in its character. 
But as soon as we comprehend that these two olive 
trees, these two anointed ones, standing before the 
God of the whole earth, exercising ^o important a 
function in the perpetuity of His kingdom, are the two 
grand Truths of Eeligion which inculcate love to the 
Lord and love to man, we can then see at once the 
relevancy and significance of the symbolism. We 
need not remind those who are familiar with the 
emblems of Scripture as explained by the law of cor- 
respondences, that golden oil denotes heavenly good- 
ness, flowing into and filling the hearts of men. And 
while no two men that ever lived can be said to be the 
pipes or mediums through which heavenly goodness is 
conveyed from the Lord to the church universal, yet 
we can distinctly see that these two grand Truths, 
proceeding from the Lord, forever speaking His 
Word, enjoining a life of love towards God, and of 
charity to Man, with the righteous performance of all 
duties whatsoever, are the pipes,'' — are the means 
or mediums by which heavenly goodness is conveyed 
to the church universal ; by which it is poured into the 
hearts of the Lord's faithful ones, and rendered 
effective in their lives. 

In the fourth verse of this eleventh chapter of 
Revelation, besides being spoken of as the two olive 
trees and the two anointed ones, these two witnesses 
are called also, ''the two candlesticks standing before 
the God of the whole earth." Now, in the natural 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 



155 



idea, a candlestick has simply one use, and that is 
easily understood. It is an instrument for dispensing 
light ; and it is this service which it uniformly suggests. 
SO; these two grand truths, testifiers concerning God 
and Man, are, according to the spiritual idea, the great 
dispensers of light ; — standing before the God of the 
whole earth, the means of shedding forth the rays of 
spiritual knowledge to all ages and nations.] 

When we come to look over the history of the 
world, we shall be struck with the remarkable prov- 
idence of the Lord in this respect. It has been so 
ordered that every people retaining any rational intel- 
ligence, has also some form of religion established 
among them, by which they are instructed and influ- 
enced and led. And as we examine these religions 
with respect to the character of their teachings, this 
extraordinary fact will be found true of them all, viz : 
that they are possessed of and teach these two Grand 
Truths. They every one contain and utter something 
of the testimony of the two witnesses. Many of them 
teach them obscurely. Many of them mingle and 
confuse the testimony by the addition of numerous 
errors. None of those beyond Christendom have them 
in fulness or clearness. But yet, among them all, 
ancient and modern, the two grand ideas of Worship 
and Life are preserved. They all teach that there is 
a Divine Being, who is to be reverenced and obeyed, 
and that the principles of moral life towards the 
neighbor, set forth in our decalogue, are to be observed 
, and done. 

Thus we see that, throughout all history, the Lord 
has preserved His Two Witnesses alive; and that 
these two candlesticks of the Word, standing thus 



156 



LECTURE Yir. 



before the God of the whole earth; have succeeded in 
sending down some portions of their light even into 
the murky atmosphere and cloudy gloom of paganism. 

It is said here that power was given to these two 
witnesses ; by which is signified the greater clearness 
and fulness that is imparted to these truths, now that 
the spiritual sense of the Scripture is made known, 
and so every part of the Bible filled with a stronger 
and more effulgent light. We have already stated the 
further truth disclosed in the Writings of the New 
Jerusalem; concerning the Lord, our Creator, as well 
as our Saviour and Redeemer, and similar things are 
true, also, of the other witness, — the Doctrine of 
Life. Much new light of the highest order and of the 
utmost value, is given in the New Jerusalem, con- 
cerning the spiritual nature of man, his life here and 
hereafter, — concerning his duties, the laws of the 
human mind, the life of regeneration, with all the 
infinite ways and means of human improvement and 
salvation. 

That those multitudes, collected in the world of 
spirits at the time of the Last Judgment, were ex- 
plored and tried by the standard of these Truths, and 
that that is what is here described, may be learned 
from the words with which this chapter opens ; where 
it is said that a reed was put into the hand of the 
Apostle, and he was commanded to rise and measure 
the temple of God, and them that ivorship therein. 
Now, to measure the worshippers of God is, of course, 
to try them by the standard of truth and goodness, 
and see -how nearly they conform to it, or how far 
they fall short of it. 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 



157 



The treatment which the Two Witnesses are de- 
scribed as receiving at the hands of those populations, 
is typical of the states of the evil there with respect 
to these two great truths of life and worship. They 
disliked them. Wicked men never do like to have 
their lives or their motives tried by so high a stand- 
ard as these divine precepts of the gospel. In heart, 
they are enemies to the truths which teach supreme 
love to God, and equal love to man. Those truths 
condemn their wickedness, adjudging it to be evil, 
and hence they would be glad to destroy the truths ; 
which is meant by their apparently killing the wit- 
nesses, allowing them to lie as if dead for three days 
and a half. 

All this is said to have taken place, — where ? In 
any city of the natural world ? No, not at all ; but 
in that great city which is spiritually called Sodom 
and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Thus, 
a spiritual city ; for our Lord was crucified, neither 
in literal Sodom, nor in literal Egypt. He was cruci- 
fied spiritually as well as naturally. He has been 
crucified and slain, in spirit, in all ages since, by 
being rejected by a perverse and wicked world, whose 
impure will is symbolized by Sodom, and whose dark- 
ened understanding is typified by Egypt, according to 
prophetic usage. 

But these Truths were, in those communities of 
assembled spirits, and always will be, vindicated in 
the end by the Lord, and made to appear, as they 
really are, as divine and heavenly in their origin and 
character. Thus are they made to ascend up to 
heaven in the sight of all, being so clearly and so 
plainly taught, that even their enemies are compelled 
to behold them. 



158 



LECTURE VII. 



These Two Witnesses are uttering their testimony 
to us to-day. It is through obedience to these truths 
that the kingdoms of this world are to become the 
kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, in which He 
shall reign forever and ever. 

Let it be ours, then, to give these truths a hearty 
and affectionate reception, living in the effort, with 
the Lord's help, to conform our conduct to them, 
that, when we come to have the golden reed applied 
to the measurement of our spiritual possessions, we 
shall not be found wanting ; but be ready and willing 
to join in the heavenly anthem here recorded as being 
sung on that occasion by the four and twenty elders, 
saying, with them, from the heart : — 

We give thee thanks, Lord God Almighty, who 
art, and wast, and art to come: because thou hast 
taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned 
[Eev. xi. 7.] 



LECTURE VIII. 



THE SEVEN VIALS, WITH THE SEVEN LAST * 
PLAGLES. 

CONTENTS : — Effects of the Judgment; Separa- 
tion OF THE Good and Era ; Chapters Twelve to Eight- 
een INCLUSIVE ; The Woman clothed with the Sun, the 
Church in the Spiritual World ; The Hundred and 
Forty-Four Thousand on Mt. Sion, the New Heaven ; 
The " Everlasting Gospel/' the Gospel of the Second 
Advent ; The Four Evil Beasts seen, which are Types 
of Evil Lust, contrasted with the Four Heavenly 
Beasts, which are Types of Holy Affections ; The 
Seven Last Plagues, the Sum of Direful Eesults, 
which flow from persistent Wickedness of Life. 



LECTUEE. 



" And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having 
the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the 
earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. 
Saying, with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him ; for 
the hour of His judgment is come : and worship him that made . 
heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." 
— Rev. xiv. 6, 7. 

We propose to-day to examine seven chapters of 
this Book, viz : from the twelfth to the eighteenth 
inclusive. At first sight, this may seem too great an 
undertaking for a single discourse, and as one involv- 
ing a too summary or compendious style of statement 
making it diflScult for the hearers to gain a clear idea 
of the subject matter. But in practice, it may be 
found to be the most simple method of treatment, fix- 
ing the subject better in the mind, and enabling them 
to remember it more easily than another mode. For 
the ideas which give the key to the understanding of 
these chapters are few, simple, and closely connected 
with each other ; and, by confining our attention to 
them, we shall keep closer to the general scope and 
tenor of the prophecy, and so avoid overburdening 
the memory or losing ourselves in a multitude of 
details. 

We are studying the Last Judgment, and the events 
which accompany it; — the second Advent of the 
14* 



162 



LECTURE YIII. 



Lord; by the Eevelation of New Truth from the TV"ord. 
The formation of a New Heaven by Him in the Spir- 
itual World, and the establishment of a New Church, 
called the New Jerusalem, proclaiming this truth on 
the earth. 

We have followed this grand development through 
its introductory stages. We have witnessed the 
exploration of the great multitudes collected in the 
intermediate world from nominal Christendom, and 
heard a description of their qualities ; both of those 
good ones of whom a new heaven could be composed, 
and of those evil ones who, on account of their char- 
acters, could not enter into such a combination. We 
have also witnessed their Trial by Truth, and seen 
some of the results disclosed when there was applied 
to them the standard of those two grand Truths of the 
Bible which bear the Lord^s testimony in every age. 
The Two Commandments requiring love to God and 
love to Man. 

In the seven chapters to be examined to-day we 
read first a description of the New Church, next, of 
the formation of the New Heaven, and then, of the 
conclusion of the Judgment upon the Christian popula- 
tions, resulting in the casting down of the evil out of 
the intermediate world into the regions below. These 
three things, therefore, will occupy our attention in 
their order. 

There is one principal fact which distinguishes the 
scenes we are to contemplate to-day from those we 
have been studying before. Heretofore, we have 
viewed those populations rather as one great body ; 
as composed of different classes indeed, yet still as 
associated, and mingled together in a common mass. 



THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES.. 



1G3 



And we have witnessed the successive processes of 
exploration, angelic visitation, proclamation of the 
truth, discussion and trial, by which, gradually, a 
separation was effected, — by which those populations 
of spirits were sifted, as it were, each kind being 
drawn away in its appropriate direction, until now, 
when we come to behold them as actually divided, — 
as two diverse and opposing bodies, contrary in char- 
acter, and moving in opposite directions. 

Let us look a moment, carefully, at some of the facts 
we have already been studying, and see what they 
necessarily imply. 

We have seen the opening of the great Book and an 
explanation of its spiritual meaning. We have heard 
the sounding of the seven trumpets, and have followed 
the angels in their descent from heaven to the world 
of spirits, carrying with them and proclaiming the 
new truths or doctrines. They went as missionaries 
to those mixed populations. And we have seen that 
they gained adherents among them, — a mighty multi- 
tude indeed, — even all the good or well disposed to be 
found in those populations, who thence came out and 
stood apart by themselves. What, then, is the essen- 
tial fact that we are here called upon to contem^plate ? 
Why, simply this. This heavenly evangelization had 
resulted in the collection of a great worshipping pop- 
ulation ; in other words, a Neic Cliurcli had been gath- 
ered and formed there, under the immediate ministra- 
tions of the angels. A church, too, possessing some 
remarkable characteristics ; whose preachers were 
angels commissioned by the Lord, and whose members 
were good men that had finished their earthly labors 
and laid aside their mortal bodies, and who in the 



164 



LECTURE yill. 



great Day of trial had not been found wanting. The 
general assembly and church of the first born ; a 
church in which good spirits are instructed and pre- 
pared, and so made ready to enter those New Heavens, 
which the Lord also forms at His coming. A church 
which was not disbanded on the day of its formation, 
nor in that year, which exists now, and which will 
exist forever, — whose membership is- kept up by the 
reception into it of obedient and teachable ones con- 
stantly going thither from this earth. A church in 
which the accepted ones, your friends and mine, who 
have departed from our midst within the last year, 
within the last month, and last week, are worshipping 
to-day. 

It is this church that is described to us in the twelfth 
chapter, under the figure of the Woman seen in the 
higher parts of the spiritual world, clothed with the 
sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head 
a crown of twelve stars.'' The Scriptural usage, by 
which the church is represented as a ivoman, being 
also sometimes called a wife and mother, is so frequent 
and abundant, as well as so generally acknowledged, 
that we have no need to prove it, as all will readily 
assent to its meaning. 

The symbolism here employed sets forth her spir- 
itual qualities. Her vesture of sunshine denotes the 
fulness and clearness of heavenly truth in which she 
is instructed, as, by derivation from her Divine Master, 
and in imitation of Him, she clothes herself " with 
light as with a garment.'' The moon and stars are 
prophetic emblems of the faith and knowledge of 
heavenly and divine things possessed by her. Her 
" man-child " is the Doctrine which she brings forth. 



THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 



165 



and promulgates, and teaches to all those that gather 
around her altars. 

In the old prophet, where the Lord^s first coming is 
predicted, it is spoken of in one place in a similar 
manner. In our version it is, ''unto us a child is 
born ; unto us a son is given, &c., but in the original 
it is, " unto us a man-child is born.'^ We know that 
when the Lord came the first time, He was born into 
the world as the Divine Truth ; and so, again, at His 
Second Advent, it is the truth of Divine Doctrine that 
the Lord sends into the world through the medium of 
a church, gathered and organized and instructed for 
that purpose. 

The persecution which this woman in the twelfth 
chapter is described as having suffered from, repre- 
sents the opposition which that church in the world 
of spirits encountered from the evil populations by 
which it was surrounded, and the manner in which 
they attempted to treat it. Michael and his angels 
are the church and its adherents ; its angelic teachers 
and their followers. The deceiving dragon which 
fought against them, was the evil principle of false 
but persuasive reasonings with which wicked spirits 
assailed and contended against that church founded 
by the angels. These false reasonings the dragon and 
his crew poured out of their mouths, it is said, like a 
flood of devastating water ; endeavoring with them to 
swallow up the woman and her child ; that is, to over- 
turn and sweep away that church and the Doctrine it 
was bringing forth and teaching. But we read that 
that New Church and her doctrine were preserved and 
protected by the Lord until the whole of that wicked 
crew were removed, — first from the higher regions of 



166 



LECTURE Till. 



the land of spirits, and then from the lower, being 
finally cast down, with their own spiritual kindred, 
into the regions below. 

In turning now to the fourteenth chapter, we pass 
to a different scene. We rise to a higher plane. We 
ascend a step in spiritual life, and, by correspondence, 
also to a higher region of the spiritual world. The 
view opens once more in heaven : and there the Lord 
and Saviour is seen, with those who have been saved 
and taken up. The apostle says, — And I looked, 
and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with 
him an hundred and forty and four thousand, having his 
Father^ s name written in their foreheads. And I heard 
a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and 
as the voice of a great thunder : and I heard the voice 
of harpers harping with their harps : and they sung as 
it were a new song before the throne, and before the 
four beasts, and the elders ; — and no man could learn 
that song but the one hundred and forty and four thou- 
sand that were redeemed from the earth. 

We have already once contemphited this class of 
persons, the one hundred and forty-four thousand, 
while studying the seventh chapter, at the time of 
their sealing. When it was made, known to us, 
through the angelic exploration, that there did exist 
such a class in the world of spirits, — that they were 
capable of becoming citizens of heavenly communities, 
and that they were designated and reserved by the 
Lord for this purpose. 

We now behold them, therefore, after the sealing has 
taken effect. We behold them no longer surrounded 
by and mingled with adverse elements ; but separated 
and arranged and organized by themselves. They 



THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 



167 



have been not only gathered out of those mingled 
multitudes into the New Church, formed by the angels 
in the intermediate world, but having been instructed 
there by angels for a sufficient period of time, have 
been at length raised up to their destined places in the 
heavenly regions, and are now seen, in company with 
their Saviour, — their Divine Lord and Master, on the 
heavenly mountain, settled in their abodes in the 
spiritual Canaan, from whence they are to go no more 
out, but where they are to remain, in living conjunc- 
tion with Him, to eternity. 

In other words, we here have a description of the 
formation and appearance of that New Heaven,^' 
which the Lord promised to form at His Second 
Advent, to which a number of the prophets distinctly 
refer, and which we have so frequently mentioned in 
these Discourses. 

We have said that these redeemed and purified 
ones, of whom that New Heaven is composed, 
ascended thither out of that New Church formed by 
angels in the world of spirits. And this continues to 
be the case. From the first day of its organization 
that heaven has been receiving accessions. At first 
its numbers were comparatively few, but they have 
been constantly increasing ever since. When the 
good there were first separated from the wicked, some 
of them were much more nearly prepared to enter 
heaven than others, and so were taken up at an earlier 
period. And this occurred with every degree of 
variety. So, too, good spirits departing from the 
earth, began at once to enter that church, and to 
receive there instruction and preparation. So that a 
constant tide of emigration, so to speak, from the 



168 



LECTURE Till. 



earth, has been entering that heaven from the day of 
its formation until now, and will continue thus to flow 
in — and in increasing volume — forever. "For as 
the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, 
shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall yoar 
seed and your name remain. And it shall come to 
pass that from one new moon to another, and from 
one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come and wor- 
ship before me, saith Jehovah." 

And as the population of that New Heaven extends, 
its power and its influence extend. It is capable of 
doing more good than formerly. It is capable of 
acting upon the world of spirits more powerfully and 
also capable of acting upon the world of men more 
powerfully. We feel its influences to-day. And we 
see in the world around us, and have seen, in an in- 
creasing ratio, for the last hundred years, the evidences 
of Its influences upon the moral and civil life of Christ- 
endom. It is the cause of all the progress in human 
afi-airs which we have witnessed as so marked within 
this period, and which we all feel and see to be so 
largely on the increase. And it will be the cause or 
rather the medium from the Lord, through which still 
greater light, and still greater progress will flow into 
the minds of men, until those vast changes of good- 
ness and peace, so often dwelt upon, and so glowingly 
set forth in the prophets, shall have been reached and 
realized upon the earth. 

It is in this connection that the words of the text 
occur. The apostle then continues : '■' And I saw 
another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the 
everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on 



THE SEVEX LAST PLAGUES. 169 

the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and 
tongue, and people." The " gospel " here meant is 
the gospel of the Second Advent ; and it is called the 
everlasnng gospel, because the church and dispensa- 
lon fornaed under it, are never to pass away, but are 
to be perpetual, as so frequently declared in Scrip- 
ture For we read that the new heavens and the new 
earth which Jehovah will make, shall «n before 
him; and by the "new earth" is signified the new 
church corresponding to the new heaven 
And in the prophet Daniel, where the Second Ad- 

fulfil ^"1' '-^Sment, and the latter 

day ftdfilnient of prophecy, are depicted, we read 
hat, m those days, the Lord of heaven shall set up a 

S^f'n' "'""^ forever f-1 

that_ His dominion, which He now establishes, is the 
dominion of an Age, or dispensation, which shal no 
"'^' -^-^ «J^aIl not be 

Such perpetuity or permanency of endurance is 
never predicated of the church and dispensationTtr 
duced through the agency of our Lord's Apostles 
They were never told that it would endure foreve^ 
on the contrary, it was predicted by Peter that ''a 
great falling a.ay " should take place in that church 
The gosioel they were sent out into the world to 
preach IS never called the "everlasting gosoel " 

Not that the things then revealed and ta^it were 
not tnie. Very far from that. But that thrEevell 
^on of heavenly truth was not then complete. Z 
world did not then receive the sum total ; more was 
to come. Further important particulars were to be 
given m the fulness of times ; not " gospel ' 



170 



LECTURE Yin. 



in the sense meant by Paul, but a further disclosure 
from the interior contents of the same ; and to this 
latter-day dispensation, of still greater light and illus- 
tration, they were constantly directed to look ; as it 
is expressed by Paul, in the words already quoted, — 
''We (the apostles of this age, now,) know only in 
part, and we prophesy in part, but when that which 
is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be 
done away/^ 

This everlasting gospel of the Lord's Second Ad- 
vent, is described here, in connection with the forma- 
tion of the New Heaven, to signify that such is the 
gospel preached in that Heaven, and that from that 
Heaven it will descend, first to the world of spirits, 
being promulgated by angels there, and then to the 
world of men, to be j^reached and promulgated here ; 
and that the influences proceeding from that Heaven, 
will be constantly given to the dissemination of these 
truths, and to inducing the human mind to receive 
them. 

We have now examined the contents of two chap- 
ters, the twelfth and fourteenth. And, in so doing, 
we have observed the final effects of the judgment, 
upon one of the two separated bodies. We have fol- 
lowed the progress of the good in their ascent to a 
higher and better world, until we have seen them ele- 
vated and settled in their homes in heaven. 

We are now to turn in an opposite direction. The 
contents of five other chapters are before us, the thir- 
teenth, and fifteenth, to the eighteenth, inclusive ; 
and, in them, we contemplate the final effects of the 



THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 171 

same judgment upon the other body of spirits, — upon 
the unregenerate and sinful. On this side, ^ we find 
described the defeat of the dragon, the overthrow of 
his hosts, and the fall of the great Babylon of the 
world of spirits. But, although the particulars men- 
tioned are numerous, yet the whole may be summed 
in a single idea, and by a single phrase, and that is, 
the Destruction of the Wicked. We here behold 
them on their way to perdition. The qualities -which 
possess them, and which are the cause of their ruin, 
are vividly portrayed. Those qualities are here re- 
vealed to us in their inmost characters, and given in 
connection with the results to which they lead. The 
evil gathered from the nominally Christianized coun- 
tries—both Protestant and Catholic — are what are 
described, and we read until we behold them all re- 
moved from the world of spirits, and cast down into 
the hells below, signified by the bottomless pit.'' 
Since that day, the intermediate world of spirits has 
been free from their presence, — as permanent resi- 
dents. 

The seven vials of wrath, filled with the seven last 
plagues, are nothing else than symbols and descrip- 
tions of the effects of human passions and lusts, 

the curses, the disorders, the hardships, the suffer- 
ings, the torments and the social chaos, which the 
unrestrained propensities of the human heart produce 
in any community where they prevail, and especially 
in those great communities of separated and con- 
demned spirits of which we have here been reading. 

In the description, the work of inflicting these 



* Including part of chapter 12. 



172 



LECTURE VIII. 



plagueS; is attributed to the angels. The plagues are 
said to have been contained in golden vials^ which 
were put into the hands of angels, and by them poured 
out upon the doomed populations below. So the 
dragon is represented as being overthrown and thrust 
down into the bottomless pit, by Michael and his 
angels. And the two witnesses, in the eleventh chap- 
ter, are said to have been gifted with the power of in- 
flicting upon mankind all plagues as often as they 
will, and are also described as sending forth fire out 
of their mouths, consuming those who persecuted 
them. This is the common mode of representation 
used in Scripture. The sufferings which overtake the 
wicked, are almost always spoken of as being inflicted 
upon them from above, — as flowing down upon them 
out of heaven. But this is only according to the ap- 
pearance. This form of speaking is employed because 
the flowing down of heavenly influences are the occa- 
sion of manifesting and bringing to light the hidden 
corruption of the wicked ; as the sunshine, which usu- 
ally vivifies and improves all nature, when it falls upon 
rotting substances, only hastens the process of decay. 
Hhefire proceeding out of the mouth of the witnesses, 
denotes the blaze of evil passion or zeal aroused in the 
minds of the evil when, in the spiritual world, they 
hear the truth proclaimed. And the death which is 
said to ensue to them, is the spiritual death which 
persistent opposition to the truth occasions to the 
soul. 

So the seven last plagues are said to have been 
poured out of golden vials, in the hands of angels, be- 
cause, as we have already seen, the different processes 
of the Judgment have been conducted by the angels. 



THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. I73 

It was through their agency that the truths were pro- 
claimed m the sounding of the seven trumpets/and 
the truths are what declare, detect, and expose the 
evil desires and corrupt propensities of the wicked 
laying them bare to the sight. 

But there is another very important way in which 
the preaching of the truths by the angels, had affected 
that vast multitude of unclean spirits in a most unfa- 
vorable manner. As we have already seen, that 
preaching had served to select out and separate from 
among them, all the good and well disposed spirits 
who had formerly dwelt among them. And it was 
this circumstance, added to the powerful promulga- 
tion of the truth, that had destroyed the bonds which 
held their society together, which had stirred it up 
from Its very depths, and utterly overturned it, by 
simply delivering up to the insane persuasions of their 
own passions and lusts, the wicked characters who 
remained. 

_ Thus the Lord does not actively and affirmatively 
inflict any torments. Par from it ; for He is uniform- 
ly merciful. Nor do the angels willingly afflict any. 
They do nothing whatever for the purpose of adding 
o the miseries of the wicked. They take care only 
to save and protect, and defend the good, -all who 
are wilhng to be saved .spiritually, leaving the evil 
simply m freedom, to go by themselves and to behave 
as they please. 

So far from inventing means to increase their dis- 
orders, the ministrations of the Lord through the an- 
gels are all directed to allay, or to modify and dimin- 
ish the fury and malignity with which they not unfre- 
quently annoy and torment one another. 



174 



LECTUEE VIII. 



The hell of the wicked in the other life, consists 
wholly and altogether in merely being delivered up, 
in answer to their own desire, — in answer to their 
own choice and prayer, to the bent of their own un- 
subdued propensities. 

How would it be here in the world of men, if a sim- 
ilar experiment were tried ? Remove, in any commu- 
nity the external bonds which hold society together, 
and what would be the result ? Select out from the 
nation all those whose conduct is ruled by the princi- 
ples of righteousness and justice, — all who obey the 
laws of moral probity from heartfelt conviction, from 
their own free will, independent of the pressure of 
public opinion, or the restraints of the civil jpower, 
and remove them to a distance. Tlien withdraw the 
civil laws which now serve to restrain and hold in 
check the selfish desires and designs of the multi- 
tude, the laws which forbid theft, and adultery, and 
perjury, and murder, and it is not difficult to see, 
without a very vivid imagination, some few of the re- 
sults which would follow. We can think how disor- 
ders of every kind would break out and abound, how 
things would grow from bad to worse, until anarchy 
would set in, all traces of civilization would rapidly 
disappear, one widespread contention would be wit- 
nessed for dominion and power, for the property and 
goods of others, and for the means of selfish gratifica- 
tion or pleasure, until society would crumble to pieces, 
while social chaos and the world's night of darkness 
would return. 

Imagine, if you can, the probable state of things in 
times like those, in some of the great centres of the 
world's life, like London, or Paris, or New York! 



THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 



175 



Would they not, under the conditions we have de- 
scribed, present, to the contemplations of the truly 
rational and Christianized mind, a full picture of places 
upon which the seven vials of wrath had been poured 
out? Should we not behold the ''unquenchable 
fires'' burning in every individual heart, and flaming 
forth in every individual life ? And should we not 
behold human society there, bleeding and suffering 
under the woes, and distresses, and grievous torments 
that are here prophetically depicted under the sym- 
bolism of the seven vials ? This is so obvious to the 
reason, that we presume none will doubt it. And all 
this, too, in countries which are nominally Christian. 

But in the merciful providence of the Lord, human 
communities are seldom brought to the test of so se- 
vere a trial. Only at long intervals, and then only 
for short periods, is anarchy allowed to prevail, that 
we may have the lesson of beholding what is really in 
man, when left to himself. And we can see that it is 
not necessary to cast in any other ingredients than 
those found in corrupt and perverted human hearts, 
in order to constitute a hell. 

If these things would be true of a community of 
men, situated in the natural world, how much truer 
must they be of the spiritual world, where all the 
mental laws work in greater freedom, and come to 
their full head and operation without impediment. 
What a melancholy picture of disorder and woe is 
given in these five chapters, where the last state of 
the wicked, when left to themselves, is described ! 
No ! not a particle need to be added from Divine 

wrath — for there is no such thing as Divine wrath 

nothing added from the vindictive justice of the 



176 



LECTURE YIII. 



angelS; — for there is nothing of the kind ; nor even 
any pangs of a disturbed conscience, — for there is no 
such thing as conscience left there, all remnants of such 
a restraining principle have been blotted out of the 
mind before the spirit has sunken to those depths, 
having been first, as the prophet expresses it, ''seared, 
as if with a red-hot iron,'' and finally drowned and 
buried deep down in a grave of false persuasion and 
unrepented lust. No ; nothing is done to the evil but 
simply to separate them from among the good. 

No reader of the Book of Revelation can have failed 
to notice the frequency with which beasts of various 
descriptions figure in its symbolical representations. 
We have already had occasion to refer to some of the 
animals. At the beginning, we read of the four beasts 
which the Apostle saw in heaven, then of the horses 
going forth from the Book, frequently of the Lamb 
representing our Saviour as to His Humanity ; and 
here, in these seven chapters, of four other beasts, — 
the dragon, which persecuted the woman, the beast 
which came up out of the sea, having seven heads and 
ten horns, the second beast, which came up out of the 
earth, and, lastly, the scarlet beast, upon which the 
great harlot was seen sitting. 

As we have before had occasion to observe, these 
animated forms are all types or emblems of things in 
the human mind. For the most part, they represent 
man as to his affections ; and, as may be clearly 
gleaned from the descriptions, sometimes typify them 
in an orderly or holy state of development, and at 
others, in a most perverted, disorderly, and unholy 
state. 



THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 



177 



The four beasts first seen, are thus described by the 
Apostle. ''And round about the throne were four 
beasts, full of eyes before and behind. And the first 
beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, 
and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth 
beast was like a flying eagle.'' These four beasts 
reappear constantly throughout the Book, in connec- 
tion with the scenes which are laid in heaven. In- 
deed, they represent heaven. They are intended to 
typify or embody, and so represent, all heavenly or 
holy affection. They are emblems of the pure and 
orderly affections which move and animate the angels, 
leading them into that high and holy fellowship, and 
inspiring them with a love for all their duties. 

As soon as we know this their meaning, we can see 
the reason of the things which are attributed to them. 
It is said that they rest not day and , night, crying 
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. They are 
represented as taking an active part throughout in the 
occurences described in this Book ; they are said, 
repeatedly, to join in the worship and glorification of 
the Lord. When the four horses went forth from the 
Book, as each successive seal was opened, ''one of 
the four beasts said, come and see ; and when the 
seven last plagues were to be manifested, we read, 
''And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven 
angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, 
that liveth forever and ever.'' 

This constant reference to these four beasts is to 
signify the entrance of heavenly affections into all 
these movements. They are the same four beasts that 
so frequently occur in different parts of Scripture, 
appearing first on the standards of the Israelitish hosti 



178 



LECTURE VIII. 



as they marched and encamped, according to their 
four grand divisions; in the wilderness. Judah, with 
the lion on its standard, occupied the east ; Reuben, 
with the man, was in the south ; Ephraim, with the ox 
or calf; on the west ; and Dan, with the eaglC; on the 
north. This form of encampment also represented 
heaven, as to its four quarters. The figures of these 
animals are also called cherubs or cherubim ; though 
cherubs were most commonly composed of a combina- 
tion of parts of each of the four in one figure. In 
Ezekiel, they are described in connection with the 
Word or Sacred Scriptures, as in that are embodied, 
or expressed and described, all heavenly and holy 
affections; and they are there called ''living crea- 
tures,^' for such affections are really and truly alive, 
having the breath of genuine spiritual life constantly 
breathed into them by the Lord from above. 

But the four beasts described in these last chapters 
stand over against those cherubic ones in marked con- 
trast. There is no difficulty in perceiving that they 
are types of evil. They embody and represent human 
affection, perverted and disordered to a most painful 
degree. Their shapes are monstrous in the extreme, 
being unlike any forms known in nature, or ever seen 
in visible shape in the world of men. Each one of 
them symbolizes the dominant disposition, — the ruling 
animus, — of some great class of evil men, now spirits, 
or, of evil spirits, who were once men ; dispositions, 
which they fed and nourished while in the body, and 
which they carried with them when they went to the 
spiritual world. As the four good beasts were formerly 
displayed upon the standards of the Lord's representa- 
tive host; so these monstrous shapeS; depicted here by 



THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 



179 



the prophet, may be regarded as the symbolic and truly 
corespondential devices appearing upon the standards 
of the combined hosts of the Devil and his angels, in 
all their grand divisions. The dragon, the serpent, 
Satan, the Devil, the heast, etc., are only so many col- 
lective names given to the great kingdom of Evil, each 
one, however, expressive and descriptive of some par- 
ticular quality, by which it is characterized or distin- 
guished. 

Did time allow, we could describe the character of 
each of the qualities that are here symbolized. But 
this is not required. They can all be studied in the 
Writings of the Church. It is enough at present to 
know that they represent wrong principles of life, 
principles which oppose and war against heaven and 
the church, — principles which in their inmost nature 
are direfully and fearfully evil, and lead to the most 
disastrous results, both in the present life and in the 
world to come. 

But what a lesson to us do these sad pictures con- 
vey ! What is the reason, do you suppose, that these 
scenes are made to occupy so much space ? Why is 
the description of these terrible things which overtake 
the wicked, so much more full and minute than those 
happy things, which are the portion of the good ? It 
must be, because it is so important for all to know 
them. It must be, to show us in strong and clear light 
that there is a hell to be saved from, as well as a 
heaven to be labored for and attained ; — a hell of 
dreadful character, and unspeakable misery. Here are 
unfolded the principles which make it, the evil ten- 
dencies which, unresisted and unrestrained, lead 
directly into it. Those tendencies we find at work in 



180 



I-ECTUEE Viri. 



the world, ip every society of men, — in ourselves,— 
in our own hearts. And these disclosures are given 
us, that henceforth we may avoid and shun them, 
putting them away to a distance, and laying hold of 
that great salvation that is opened to us in and 
through the Lord Jesus Christ, by a life according to 
His Commandments. Thus acting like one portion of 
those of whom we read, when it is said, — " And the 
remnant were affrighted at these things, and gave 
glory unto the God of heaven." And so let it induce 
us to give the glory unto Him, by living a life accord- 
ing to His Precepts. 



LECTURE IX. 



THE CLOSING OF THE APOSTOLICAL DISPENSA- 
TION. 

CONTENTS ; — Chapters Nineteen and Twenty ; 
The Heavenly Glorifications at the Execution op the 
Judgment ; The stupefying Effects of the previous 
State o# Things, on the Minds of Men ; The Closing 
of the First Christian Dispensation, and the Opening 
OF A New One ; Explanation of Daniel^s Image ; The 
Spiritual History of Man until the Judgment ; The 
New Order then introduced ; Explanation of the 
White Horse and his Eider ; The Completion of the 
J udgment upon the Gentiles, — beyond Christendom. 



LECTURE. 



*'Let US be glad and rejoice, and give honor to liim : for the 
marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself 
ready." — Rev. xix. 7. 

In these two chapters, the nineteenth and twenti- 
eth; we study the Closing of the Dispensation, the 
*'end'' of the first Christian Period, and the winding 
up of its affairs. 

TTe have followed the revelation of new Truth which 
constitutes the second coming of the Lord, and wit- 
nessed the effects it produced upon the mixed, good 
and evil populations in the intermediate world of the 
departed, gathered there from the nominally Christian 
countries. We have contemplated the Judgment in 
its successive stages ; seen the New Heaven formed 
by the calling forth and preparation of the good ; and 
beheld the separation of the evil, with their final 
delivery over into the realms of perdition. 

In these two chapters vre have a brief summary 
statement of these same things, as facts accomplished, 
together with the closing act of Judgment upon the 
populations not hitherto included, — the Gentile 
world, outside of Christendom, — to whom the gospel 
of our Lord — in their earth-life — had not reached. 
The entire scene is laid still, and altogether, in the 



184 



LECTURE IX. 



world of the departed. We read, first, of the glorifi- 
cations and rejoicings in the heavens on account of 
the accomplishment of these things ; then, of the effect 
which these things are to have upon that part of the 
world of spirits connected with Christendom; and, 
lastly, of their effect upon that part of the world of 
spirits connected with the countries beyond Christen- 
dom. 

Let us attend to these things successively in some 
degree of detail. 

The nineteenth chapter opens with a description of 
the joyful praises of the angels on account of the 
accomplishment of the Judgment. This fact is stated 
with great clearness and particularity, and is one 
worthy of serious attention, for it is highly instruc- 
tive. The casting down of those falsely constituted 
communities and their removal from the world of 
spirits, was the occasion of the fullest satisfaction and 
most unbounded joy throughout the heavenly world. 
They broke forth into singing above and below. 
Their hearts being filled with the most delightful 
emotions of love and gratitude, we hear the loudest 
acclamations of thanksgiving and praise rising up and 
resounding from every side. Three distinct anthems 
are here recorded as being sung in succession, by 
different choirs in that unnumbered assembly of the 
redeemed. The strains are heard to roll along from 
one vast multitude to another. The swelling voice 
of the adorations hurts forth in one region of the great 
expanse, and then is responded to by some mighty 
chorus, situated far away in another. The acclama- 
tions, beginning in the lower portions of heaven, rise 
gradually through the higher, up to the throne itself, 



CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 



185 



and then return, floating down from thence, to the 
great multitudes constituting the lower confines of 
that holy and happy world. Thus the Apostle wit- 
nessed celebrations taking place in all three of the 
heavens, — the lowest or first, in the second or 
middle, and the third or highest. While the anthem 
sung in each one is here recorded. 

From these demonstrations, so extraordinary in their 
nature, and made on so vast a scale, we may see that 
a great event is indicated; some accomplishment, 
having an important bearing on the interests of the 
whole spiritual world, as well as on those of the world 
of men. While both the importance and the magni- 
tude of the event will constantly grow upon our 
vision, becoming enlarged as we continue to study its 
character and its relations. 

Hundreds and hundreds of millions of men, yes, 
multitudes so vast that all attempts to estimate their 
numbers would be useless, had been accumulating in 
the intermediate world of the departed, for more than 
seventeen hundred years. And he who looks over the 
history of the nominally Christian countries for that 
period, will have no difficulty in understanding that 
among those millions the evil greatly predominated 
over the good. The evil ruled in those communities, 
— the tares grew up to great height and overshadowed 
the wheat. 

Here, in the world of men, the career of a power- 
ful mind is limited. A Charlemagne, a Hildebrand, a 
Napoleon, stands before his fellow-men, exercising the 
sway which his mental powers put into his hand, for 
twenty-five, perhaps for thirty years or so* and then 
passes away, leaving his functions and position to be 
16* 



186 



LECTURE IX. 



occupied by others. And so, too, whole generations 
pass constantly from the stage of action, giving way 
to the new ones coming forward, involving continual 
changes in the world's affairs, in the schemes of men, 
and in the influences that are operating in society. 

But in the world of spirits, before the Last Judg- 
ment, circumstances were somewhat different in this 
respect. There, when men arrived, they did not pass 
off in twenty-five or thirty years, but remained, as we 
have seen, one — two — three —five hundred years ; 
and in some cases, a thousand or more. Hence the 
career of a man, of a generation of men, did not come 
to an end, but went on, their force accumulating and 
their power extending. This led to very injurious and 
unhappy results ; for, as we have seen, the dominion 
was in the hands of the evil. Those communities were 
constituted and ruled according to the maxims of 
selfishness, and power, and policy, — maxims current 
in the world of ungodly men, — and not by the pre- 
cepts of love, justice, and mercy, which are the laws 
of the heavenly kingdom. 

Hence, every one departing from this world by 
death, and entering the world of spirits, came at once 
into a bad atmosphere, and was thrown into a current 
of corrupt influences. Unless he was well grounded 
in the principles of a true life, he was inevitably 
carried away by the example and operation and strong 
persuasion of immense numbers. The leaders and 
rulers of those communities made use of the successive 
ages to consolidate and strengthen and extend their 
power. They gained a constant accession of adher- 
ents, filling the contiguous regions of that world with 
their inhabitants, and then annexing them to their 



CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 187 



dominions. Thus had designing leaders of the Roman 
Catholic Religion wrought there, from age to age, until 
they had organized and built up there a Power, which 
is described in the Revelation as the Great Babylon, 
sitting upon many waters, and ruling over the kings 
of the earth. While other designing men, from the 
north of Europe, had done a very similar thing among 
the populations flocking in there from the Protestant 
nations, — holding their court and centralizing their 
power in what is called ''the Seat of the Beast',^^ or 
the ''Place'' of "the Dragon.'' 

In addition to the destructive influences which these 
"principalities and powers" of the intermediate 
world shed upon the concourse of spirits departing 
from our earth, their operation was also extremely 
deleterious upon men still in the body. They were in 
the regions of the spiritual world nearest to men. 
They were in close contact with the interiors of their 
minds. They could affect and influence their minds in 
a thousand ways, imperceptibly, and while the recip- 
ients were entirely unconscious of the source from 
whence those things came. They had risen up to a 
high altitude in the world of spirits, and the atmos- 
phere they shed forth flowed over and around the 
brains and internal senses of men, forcing them to 
breathe it, and thus to draw in some of its darkening 
and stupefying effects. The Apostle Peter informs 
us that even in his day, this spirit of iniquity had 
already begun to work ; "the man of sin," whom the 
Lord should destroy by the breath of His second 
coming ; while Paul, somewhat more distinct, speaking 



* See note C, at the end of the Volume. 



188 LECTUBE IX, 



not ODiy for his own age, but also for the church in 
the centuries to come after him, says to the Ephesians, 
— ''For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities and powers, against the rulers 
of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits 
in high places/' (Eph. vi. 12.) In the later ages, 
they had indeed risen up to and taken possession of 
and occupied a region so high as to interfere with the 
descent of heavenly influences. They had interposed 
themselves between the world in which angels live, 
and the world in which men live, hanging there like a 
dark and dense cloud, turning aside and shedding off 
the spiritual sunshine in its descent, and intercepting, 
as much as possible, all intercourse between the two 
worlds. The church on earth was spiritually block- 
aded. The larger portion of those interior avenues 
by which divine and heavenly influences are meant to 
flow down into the human soul, illustrating it with 
spiritual light, and warming it with spiritual love and 
animation, were closed up, had been seized hold of 
indeed, and were in possession of the enemy. 

The advancement of the church in religious life, 

in purity and holiness, — was brought to a stand; 
while the moral progress of the world was arrested. 
^ Men who lived in that age, viz : in the first quar- 
ter or first half of the last century, felt that it was so. 
All the history of that period is full of the depravity 
which prevailed, and of the gloom which filled the 
minds of the good on account of it. Moralists mourn 
over the corruption of manners and the widespread 
dissoluteness of the times, while the best spirits in 
the church saw and lamented its declension, its spir- 
itual deadness, and its powerlessness for good. It 



CLOSING OF THE DISPEXSATIOX. 189 



was this dark and depressing state of things, clearly 
perceived and keenly felt, that roused the religious 
enthusiasm of such men as Whitefield, the two Wes- 
leys, and Jonathan Edwards, and sent them forth into 
the field as preachers of a " Revival," to bring about 
a better, more hopeful condition of Religious life and 
practice. 

Thus, the darkness of the middle age threatened to 
return. The cause of humanity and Christian civili- 
zation was in danger of being morally lost. And this 
retrograde, downward movement could not have been 
arrested, if those evil communities in the world of 
spirits had been allowed to remain there, and continue 
their operations. 

Our Lord, in Matthew, speaking of the spiritual 
state of that time, says, — " For then shall be great 
tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of 
the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And 
except those days should be shortened, there should 
no flesh be saved : but, for the elect's sake, those 
days shall be shortened." Hence we see the great 
necessity there existed for a Judgment, that those 
days might be shortened, and brought to an end. 
We see the importance of the event in a spiritual 
point of view, — its importance to the interests of the 
Lord's kingdom, in the world of men, in the world of 
spirits, and in the heaven of angels. We discover 
here the ground of those great rejoicings in the 
heavens, and of that constant language which we 
read throughout this Book, expressing the gratitude 
and thankfulness of the angels, that the Lord is taking 
to Himself His great power, and beginning to reign, 
that the hour of His Judgment is come, and the time 



190 



LECTURE IX. 



of the dead, that they should be judged, and that 
^'the accuser of their brethren is cast down, which 
accused them day and night before God.'^ 

This, indeed, is the final ^'consummation'^ or 
end,'' looked forward to, and pointed out, in so 
much Divine Prophecy. The " end," not ^' of the 
world," as an improper translation of the phrase 
would make it appear ; the end, — not of these visible 
heavens, or this habitable globe; the end, — not of 
the historical development of humanity, nor of the 
successive generations of men on this planet ; but the 
''end" of that injurious and destructive state of 
things in the spiritual world, which brought about the 
" consummation" of the first great Christian " Age," 
the closing of the Apostolical Dispensation, " the 
winding up " of that grand system of preliminary 
" economies," which prepared the times and opened 
the way for the latter-day glory of the church, — that 
clearer Dispensation of light and life, denominated, in 
Daniel, the Kingdom that shall have no " end," and 
in the Eevelation, the New J erusalem, coming down 
from God out of heaven. 

Daniel saw, in holy vision, this same consummation 
upon those evil populations ; he saw until " the judg- 
ment was set, and the books were opened." He saw, 
also, the evil "beast,'' which rose up to such great 
power, making war on the saints of the Most High ; 
" But," he says, " the judgment shall sit, and they 
shall take away his dominion, to destroy it unto the 
end. And the kingdom, and dominion, and the great- 
ness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be 
given to the people of the saints of the Most High, 
whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all 



CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION". 191 



dominions shall serve and obey him. Hitherto is the 
end of the matter.'^ Hitherto is the end of the matter ; 
to this conclusion does the sum of all proj^hecy con- 
stantly point ; — to the casting down of the evil 
''principalities and powers in the intermediate 
world, and the consequent initiation and instalment of 
the latter-day kingdom. 

The same; also, is represented by the great Image 
seen in a dream by the king of Babylon, and ex- 
plained according to a literal application by Daniel. 
It is there applied to worldly kingdoms, but DanieFs 
veiled explanation given to the king, is itself pro- 
phetical, involving a spiritual meaning. Under the 
figure of successive earthly kingdoms, are described 
the successive dispensations of the Lord's kingdom 
on earth, as may be clearly seen in that it runs to the 
same conclusion or ''end^^ of which we have been 
speaking. 

That Image, as we read, had a head of gold, a 
breast and arms of silver, a belly and thighs of brass, 
legs of iron, and feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 
This Image is a representative of Man ; — of man, in 
his solidarity, or unity, as a race; — of man, in his 
spiritual development, according to the history of the 
past : — of man, in his relations to the Lord's kingdom, 
from the beginning until now ; — an image, therefore, 
of the History of the Church Universal, from the 
creation of Adam, down to the ''end'^ of the prepara- 
tory dispensations, — down to the final judgment of 
''Babylon" and "the Beast," which we have been 
studying in the Book of Eevelation. 

The different metals are symbolical of the different 
ages through which mankind has passed ; a symbolism 



192 



LECTUEE IX. 



quite familiar to the thought and literature of oriental 
and ancient times. Here are, in succession, given in 
figure, the golden age,'^ the silver age,^^ the bra- 
zen or ''copper age,^^ the ''iron age,^^ and lastly, a 
shorter age, partly iron, and partly "clay.^^ 

As we have said, these are the different " ages of 
Man, in respect to his relations to the Church, or 
Lord^s kingdom ; and therefore, mark so many suc- 
cessive dispensations, or churches, or Periods of Di- 
vine, Providential economy, with respect to the 
church. 

The head of gold, a sign of the golden age, typifies 
the most Ancient Church, the Period extending from 
Adam to Noah, the antediluvian ]3art of the world's 
history. It has been called, almost universally, by 
tradition, "the golden age," because then there was 
greater simplicity of life and manners. Men lived 
more in the emotions than in the later ages, and the 
goodness which then belonged to the church "was 
more spontaneous, fuller of innocence, and more heav- 
enly, than that which came in afterwards. 

But the men of that age fell away. There had been 
a constant decline from the days of the Adamic age 
downward ; at length the corraption became com- 
plete, the world prevailed over the church, the church, 
as it had till then existed, was swept away, and the 
event described as the Deluge, brought that Age and 
Dispensation to an end. 

Next came the " Silver Age.'' From Noah to the 
days of Heber, a different state of things existed. 
Men had become less emotional and more intellectual 
in their character. New elements of manhood were 
called into play, and civilizations of a different order 



CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 193 

from those existing before, were built up. Men sep- 
arated into distinct nations ; there was no longer, 
''one language and one speech*/^ ideas of political 
power and empire were developed, while civil law be- 
came a force, and the bond which held society togeth- 
er. Men, however, so far as they still listened to the 
things of the church, were still spiritual in their ge- 
nius ; being so near the primitive Revelation, and ig- 
norant of many modern corruptions, their good men 
were interior men in their perceptions, and highly in- 
telligent in the principles of divine and heavenly 
things. In its later days, when the sacred Books of 
its earlier time were lost, that church was instructed 
by such men as Job, and Jethro, and Melchizedek, 
who kept the lamp of the church trimmed, and the 
holy flame burning, amidst the surrounding darkness 
of an otherwise declining and demoralized age. It 
was an age, as respects the church, rather of the 
study, the contemplation, and the teaching of spiritual 
truth, — than the spontaneous practice of benevolent 
goodness, and hence its name, the ''silver age, 
meaning thereby the Age of Spiritual Truth. 

But that church gradually died out ; by degrees the 
oriental peoples, among whom it existed, sank into 
idolatry, or mythological superstitions of various 
kinds, and it became necessary to prepare for a new 
order of things. We then behold the call of Abra- 
ham. And when the Law was promulgated from Mt. 
Sinai, and the Jewish church was established through 
the instrumentality of Moses, a new Dispensation 
commenced. This was the brazen or copper age. 
An age, that is, of merely natural goodness. Men 
were not so intelligent in spiritual, supernatural, and 
17 



194 



LECTURE IX. 



invisible things, as they had been in former ages. 
They had forgotten more of the spiritnal truths of the 
primitive revelation. The quality of the Jewish 
church-life, was that of simple obedience to an exter- 
nally imposed law, —moral and ceremonial, — and 
whose inducements consisted principally of a system 
of temporal rewards and punishments. Their good- 
ness, therefore, as we have already said, so far as they 
possessed any, was natural, rather than spiritual ; and 
the general life of the surrounding world, was of a 
similar type, flowing along on the same plane. The 
brazen serpent was elevated in the wilderness, as the 
type of healing, which, while it pointed forward to 
our Lord, through whom redemption was to come, at 
the same time symbolized and set forth the character 
of the religious life which then prevailed. The laver, 
too, placed in the outer court for washing, emblem- 
atic of the purifications of that church, was of 
brass; while the altar of burnt offering, significative 
of their religious love or affection, was overlaid with 
brass, and all the utensils employed in connection with 
it were of the same metal. The molten sea was of 
brass, resting upon twelve brazen oxen, typifying the 
natural affections, and the galleries of the Temple, in 
which Jehovah was worshipped, rested upon colon- 
ades of brazen pillars, of great magnitude, and cu- 
rious workmanship. 

But when our Lord appeared in the world, the bra- 
zen Age was brought to an end. He introduced a 
new Dispensation. He revealed more truth. He 
taught a new and clearer system of Doctrines. He 
fulfilled the letter of the Word. For this reason that 
Dispensation is called the Age of Iron. That is, the 
age when literal truth is at its full. In that Age, the 



CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 



195 



letter of the Bible was completed. There is to be no 
raore Sacred Scripture given. And this completed 
letter of the Word, is the rod of iron by which the 
Lord will rule all nations/' influencing them by the 
power of His truth. Or, as another translation gives 
it, — the crook of iron,'' with which He will shep- 
herdize all nations," separating the sheep from the 
goats, drawing all who are willing to be drawn into 
His fold, and defending them from evi] after they have 
entered it. 

The first Christian or Apostolic church is founded 
upon the letter of the Word, in its obvious, natural 
sense, unenlightened, and not illustrated by its spir- 
itual meaning. Its dispensation, therefore, is the Age 
of divine natural Truth, or divine truth natural, repre- 
sented by the legs of zVo?i in the Image. 

The feet, partly of clay and partly of iron, are em- 
blematic of its later and closing centuries, when the 
Apostolical Doctrines were no longer retained pure, 
but when a number of differing systems grew up in 
Christendom, and when the pure truth of the original 
gospel had become mixed with many things of a cor- 
rupt and earthly nature. As it is said in Daniel,— 

they shall mix themselves with the seed of man, and 
the iron and the clay shall not cohere together. So 
these various system.s of systematic theology, and 
ecclesiastical polity, are partly genume, and partly 
human fallibility. A¥ith many gospel truths, which 
they have taken for a basis, they have mixed many 
things drawn from the ingenuity and persuasions of 
men, which do not well cohere with those truths. 
Thus, by the introduction of many hurtful fallacies, 
they have diminished the force of the letter of Scrip- 



196 



LECTURE IX. 



ture, and given to the church an insecure and unsta- 
ble foundation on which to stand. 

This is now seen fulfilled in the circumstances of 
our time. For so many different things have been 
drawn forth from the letter of the Scripture, which 
are not in reality taught there, that men are begin- 
ning to distrust the whole thing. Great doubt and 
perplexity prevail, not only with respect to the proper 
meaning and interpretation of the Bible, but in regard 
to its very validity. This is, indeed, the great theo- 
logical question of the day. The best minds of the 
church are exercised about it; and the more they 
think rationally on it, the more they are troubled ; 
thus fulfilling our Lord's words, that there should be 
great ''perplexity,'' '-'men's hearts failing them for 
fear ; " "for," he adds, " the powers of the heavens 
shall be shaken." Now the " powers of the 'heavens," 
that are known and operative among men, are the 
truths of the Divine Word; and these are "shaken," 
when discredit is thrown upon them, and they are 
brought into doubt. And this is done at the same 
time, and by the same process, that mixes the iron 
with the clay, giving revealed Scripture truth a feeble 
and infirm hold on the rational convictions of men. 

How many illustrations of this present state of 
things might we not cite, did only time and space 
allow ! 

But the truth is, all these mixed systems are des- 
tined to pass away. This assurance we have, dis- 
tinctly uttered by the mouth of Divine Prophecy. 
Daniel said to the king, — " Thou sawest till that a 
stone was cut out (of the Eock) without hands, which 
smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and 



CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 197 



clay, and brake them to pieces/' * * * And they be- 
came like the chaff of the summer threshing; floors ; 
and the wind carried them away, that no place was 
found for them : and the Stone which smote the 
image, became a great mountain and filled the whole 
earth/' {Dan, ii. 34.) 

Now, we know that, in a Supreme Sense, our Lord 
Himself is the Stone,'' and He is called so from the 
imperishable Truth, which He is, and which He em- 
bodies and reveals. So, here, the stone cut out of 
the Rock," is new truth, revealed from the Divine 
Word ; the truth we have been endeavoring to ex- 
plain, the truth of the Spiritual Sense of the Bible, 
the truth concerning Himself and His Second Advent. 
In other words, this Stone" is the Lord, in His Sec- 
ond Advent. 

The Stone" is said to have been '^cut out with- 
out hands," — a remarkable and significant expression, 
— to denote that this Doctrine is a matter of Revela- 
tion, that it comes wholly and altogether from the 
Divine Word, and is not the result of the reasoning 
ability or of any intellectual ingenuity of man. In 
this, it stands in marked contrast to the iron and the 
clay. And it is this quality which gives it its power 
of endurance, becoming, as it does, the instrument in 
the hands of the Lord, by which His everlasting 
earthly kingdom is to be established. The kingdom 
which, as we read, is to consume all those king- 
doms ; " that is, a Dispensation which is now to fol- 
low and supersede all those dispensations which we 
have thus briefly sketched, and which the metallic 

Image," in prophetic language, described. 
17* 



198 



LECTUHE IX. 



It is this change of the Dispensations, — the clos- 
ing up of the foregoing ages, and the commencement 
of the ne^^and last one, — which we study here in 
this nineteenth chapter of Revelation ; and which, as 
we have seen, is the ground of the heavenly rejoic- 
ings. 

We are next to follow the effects of this change. 

We read immediately after this that heaven was 
opened, and that the Lord is seen, appearing as '^the 
Word of God,'' seated upon a white horse, accompa- 
nied by the armies of heaven, or the angelic hosts, 
likewise seated upon white horses, going forth in 
righteousness and in faithfulness to judge and make 
war. 

This describes the state of things which followed in 
the world of spirits, immediately after those mixed 
communities had been broken up, and the wicked 
among them cast down. That intermediate world, so 
far as connected with Christendom, was emptied of its 
former inhabitants. They had all been removed to 
other regions of the spiritual universe. None of those 
bad ^^principalities and powers, —none of those 
'^wicked spirits in high places,'' ~ ruled there any 
longer, spreading their moral miasma around. The 
atmosphere of that world had been purified by the 
great ^'Crisis" which had happened, as a violent 
thunder-storm clears the material atmosphere in this. 
No noxious influences, strongly persuasive to evil, 
now met the departing spirit entering that world from 
this. Hence we read, — " Blessed are the dead, who 
die in the Lord from henceforth." That dark cloud 
which had hung between the heaven of angels and the 
world of men, was rolled away. The influences, 



CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 



199 



which had poured in upon the human mind, stupefy- 
ing it as to spiritual things, and stimulating its evil 
fires, were withdrawn, and all the avenues, through 
which the souls of men are interiorly reached by 
divine and heavenly influences, were reopened, and 
rendered passable and available. Nothing, now, ex- 
isted there, impeding or interfering with the descent 
of spiritual sunshine, or the flowing down of heavenly 
and divine operations. 

Hence, as we see, this change signalized a new 
epoch in the history of the spiritual world ; a new 
Era dawned then upon the populations, both of that 
world, and of this world ; a new spiritual Age com- 
menced, an age of greater liberty and light, an age of 
purer and better influences, an age of enlargement and 
progress for the whole family of man. 

In this vision concerning the white horse, we see 
the Lord and His angels availing themselves of this 
changed condition of the world of spirits to flow down 
thither and commence their beneficent operations. We 
see the heaven above opened, and the heavenly influ- 
ences beginning to descend. We here behold the 
commencement of the New Dispensation authorita- 
tively, and, as it were, officially announced. We 
behold the Lord in person, with an array of the 
heavenly host around him, — assembled for the pur- 
pose of inaugurating the new spiritual order of things. 
His riding upon a white horse, as we have before 
explained, is emblematic of the fact that He now 
comes to communicate to men a better understanding 
of His Word, to illustrate their minds more clearly, 
rationally, and fully, with the light of sp'iritual truth, 
and that He can do this now more effectually by the 



200 



LECTURE IX. 



operations of His spirit, than He could before the 
impediments in the intermediate world were removed. 

The armies of heaven, following Him, also, upon 
white horses, shows that the angels understand the 

Word of God in its spiritual sense or meaning, and 
that they will henceforward cooperate with the Lord 
in his endeavors to illustrate men, and have them 
receive it. Thus is the marriage of the Lamb'' 
effected ; a new and closer conjunction established, in 
spiritual ways, between the Lord in the heavens and 
His church on the earth. 

The invitation next given, proceeding from the 
Angel standing in the sun, addressed to the fowls that 
fly in the midst of heaven, calling them " unto the 
supper of the great God,'' is the call now made by 
the Lord in His Second Advent, through His Word, 
clothed in the correspondential symbolism of the 
prophetic tongue, addressed to all men capable of 
rational thought (for ''birds flying in the midst of 
heaven" are rational thoughts, soaring and exploring 
heavenly things), bidding them to come, and appro- 
priate the things that are now set before them. To 
''come" and eat of this "great Supper." To come 
and inquire into these heavenly knowledges, — a call 
made to men to come and examine these wonderful 
disclosures now made from the Divine Word ; to 
" come " and feast the reason on these mighty truths, 
and nourish their intelligence, and build up their souls 
with the meat of eternal life, by learning the living 
realities of the Heavenly system of Doctrines, the 
spiritual state of existence, and the spiritual sense of 
the Word, and by the practice of these truths in their 
lives. 



CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 



201 



The discomfiture of the armies opposing the heav- 
enly host and Him that sat on the horse, by means 
of the sword which proceeded forth out of His mouth, 
denotes the final prevalence of this Truth, by the 
overthrow of error, and its universal acceptance, by 
the good and well disposed, everywhere, in the nat- 
ural world and in the spiritual world. 

The first effect of the Heavenly demonstrations and 
influences which we have just contemplated, as they 
descended into the intermediate world, occupying that 
portion of it which had been cleared of inhabitants, 
was, of course, to extend the Judgment, and so to 
consummate its execution in the realms beyond, 
reaching the communities of spirits collected from all 
the other, but unenlightened countries of the world. 
We read, therefore, as we go forward through the 
twentieth chapter, until Satan has been entirely cast 
down and shut up and bound. Until the universal 
Hades has given up the dead that were in it, — the 
small and the great standing before God, having ''the 
books opened ; that is, having the memories of their 
earth life explored, to see what the deeds were which 
they then did, whether they were good or evil. The 
" Book of Life is the Bible, according to whose truths 
all judgment is made. While at last, all the wicked 
remaining, of every kind and degree, being cast into 
the lake of fire, that is, into the hell of evil desire, we 
behold that world, the intermediate world of spirits, 
in its entire length and breadth, throughout all its 
regions, cleared at length of every vestige of evil, 
and of every malarious influence, restored to peace, 
to purity and repose. 



202 



LECTURE IX. 



The mighty chaDge, therefore, which has thus been 
wrought is wrought over the whole world. The ben- 
efits flowing from it, though felt first by Christendom, 
will not accrue to Christendom alone, but will reach 
by degrees to every people and nation under Heaven. 
The New Dispensation is for the whole family of 
man. The nations are no more to be shut up and 
segregated one from another. The old barriers are to 
be thrown down, and a common bond of intercourse 
and brotherhood grow up, uniting all in one great 
community of interests and of rights ; — the most dis- 
tant lands acknowledging, in some degree, the same 
great fundamental truths of righteousness and justice ; 
that, as to the primary Law of Religion, love to God 
and charity to man, there may come to be one Church 
Universal throughout all the earth; fulfilling our 
Lord^s words, that there shall be one Fold, and One 
Shepherd. 

^ The whole world has felt the mighty impulse of 
light and progress imparted through the influence of 
these changes. On every side the manifestations of 
this New Age have been accumulating around us for 
the last hundred years. 

Hitherto, we have been studying the spiritual causes 
of this progress, as those causes were developed in 
the spiritual world. In our next, while considering 
the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of this 
Book, it will be our object to treat of the descent of 
the New Jerusalem, following also some of the effects 
of this New Dispensation, as they have come down 
and manifested themselves among men— in the world. 



I 



LECTURE X. 



desce:n't of the xew Jerusalem. 

CONTENTS : — The Twenty-First and Twenty-Sec- 
ond Chapters ; The New Jerusalem not the Heavenly 
State of Existence of the Saints, but a New Church on 
the Earth, teaching the Heavenly Doctrines ; Histor- 
ical Evidences that a New Age has already commenced, 
AS A VISIBLE Effect of the J udgment in the World of 
Spirits ; — all Peoples feel it, but principally man- 
ifest IN Christendom ; The successive Generations of 
Men to continue Forever; No Destruction of the 
Visible Heavens and Habitable Globe to come ; A 
glorious Future for Humanity in Prospect. 



LECTUEE. 



" And I John saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming 
down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for 
her husband." And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, 
I make all things new*" — Rev, xxi. 2 and 5. 

Hitherto, in the study of this Book, we have been 
employed on events in the spiritual world. On events 
happening out of the sight of men, and beyond the 
limits of their observation. On events, therefore, 
which are made known to us only through the chan- 
nels of Divine Eevelation. 

This evening, we change our stand-point, or posi- 
tion. We come down to the earth. The scene of 
operations is transferred from the invisible to the vis- 
ible world. We are to study events, which, while 
they are subjects of Divine prophecy, are also matters 
of human observation and experience ; for they occur 
in the sight of men, finding their places and develop- 
ment in this living, moving, historic world of ours. 

We have been occupied with events of great 
magnitude, and of great importance; — even the 
rearrangement and reorganization of the mighty 
multitudes of the world of spirits. We have wit- 
nessed the preparations made in the heavens, and in 
the world of spirits, for a new state of the Church ; — 
18 



206 



LECTURE X. 



for a new instalment of Divine Truth, for a new Dis- 
pensation of light and life, and for a new teaching of 
Doctrine in the world of men. Thus,— for a new 
heavenly kingdom on the earth ; which shall have no 
end, and which shall realize for mankind all the 
precious and glorious promises of ages of prophecy. 

By some strange fallacy of reading, which seems 
to us almost unaccountable the New Jerusalem has 
been commonly supposed to depict the life after death, 
or the heavenly state of existence, the state in which 
the saints will be after the mortal body is laid aside. 
But there is no foundation for this idea in what is here 
written. It is true that Paul, in one place, speaks of 
''the Jerusalem which is above, [and] which is the 
mother of us all,^^ but he does not call it the New 
Jerusalem. The Jerusalem which is above, that is 
the church in the heavens, is indeed the mother of us 
all, for its overshadowing influences are upon us ail, 
but it remains to-day where "it was, and it will never 
come down to men; it is nowhere called the Neio 
Jerusalem in all the sacred Scripture, for it existed in 
Paul's day, it is as old as the world is, and will remain 
where it is, in the presence of God, and out of sight 
of men, forever. 

But the ''New Jerusalem'' is something different 
from that. It was seen by the Apostle John in pro- 
phetic vision, as something then future. It is a church 
which does not remain out of sight in the spiritual 
world. It descends. Its work is to be among men. 
It comes down from God, out of heaven, and Estab- 
lishes itself in the world. Its function is, with the 
help of the heavens, the creation of '' a new earthy in 
which dwelleth righteousness." It is '' the tabernacle 



DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 207 



of God^^ — not with departed spirits, but — ''with 
men/^ enabling Him to be present with them more 
fuliy than He has been enabled to be under former 
dispensations ; enabling* them to become His 
people more fully than they have been enabled to 
do under former dispensations; and enabling ''His 
servants to " serve Him more fully than they have 
been able to do under former dispensations. A church 
having a fuller and clearer flow of spiritual truth, 
" clear as crystal, proceeding forth from the throne of 
God and of the Lamb/^ 

A church, therefore, whose operations are to be 
performed in human society : where men may learn its 
truths and practise its precepts, putting on, by means 
of them, holiness of life ; where "the nations of them 
that are saved may " walk in the light of it ; and 
where "the kings of the earth may "bring their 
glory and their honor into it/' 

We now proceed to examine the outward manifesta- 
tion of these events ; to trace the effects which have 
already begun to flow from these causes ; and to study 
the fulfilment of the prophecy as it relates to develop- 
ments which are to take place in our own world. 

We have already seen, in our last Discourse, that a 
result of the Last Judgment in the intermediate world 
of spirits, was the clearing of that world of its 
inhabitants. The good had been taken up, and elevated 
into heaven, while the evil, being removed, had cast 
themselves down into hell. Thus that world was left, 
for the time, empty ; its atmosphere clear and pure ; 
ready, now, for the reception into it of the spirits of 
the deceased going from this earth ; and, more than 



208 



LECTUKE X. 



that, ready, also, for the reception and transmission 
of heavenly influences descending into it from above. 
This, as we have before observed, was the event 
which marked the commencement of a new Dispensa- 
tion, and, in the nineteenth chapter, we beheld the 
Lord described as descending into that world with His 
spiritual influences, accompanied by His angels, to 
commence there a new and more efficient system of 
operations. 

Let us observe, now, therefore, the circumstances 
into which these changes in the spiritual world bring 
the men of our world. Let us consider for a moment 
what new conditions, mentally and spiritually, mankind 
are placed in by them. What would naturally be the 
result of these new conditions to us who are still in 
the bod}'' ? 

Two points will merit our special attention. First, 
the human mind was, by those changes, restored at 
once to perfect freedom. Not that the moral freedom 
of men was ever overthrown or destroyed, — but, it 
had been greatly impeded and hampered in its opera- 
tions, by the previous state of things. Those old 
communities of spirits, as we have seen, surrounding 
man on every side, invisibly, — in close contact with 
the interior parts of his mind, constantly infused their 
thoughts into his understanding, and insinuated their 
feelings into his will. Thus they held him in a species 
of bondage. They induced him to think and to feel 
as they did. They opposed all other influences enter- 
ing his mind, and maintained in him, as far as they 
could, the old superstitions and the old order of 
things. There they hung, like a heavy drag-chain, on 
the wheels of his moral and intellectual progress. 



DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 209 

Their influence was for evil, and not for good ; tend- 
ing to darken and stupefy the common mind with re- 
spect to all the higher classes of subjects. Such was 
the temper of the times that men were persecuted and 
silenced, not only for new thoughts in religion, but 
for new theories in science. Only the most sturdy 
and determined intellects could throw off the yoke and 
rise kbove it. 

Now, the removal of those communities from the 
intermediate world, broke up that state of things. It 
liberated men from that strong mental bondage in 
which they had been held, and set them free, to think 
and to feel as they chose. This is the first point of 
our observation, with respect to these changes. 

The second is, — That, in addition to this restored 
freedom, the human mind became, from that day for- 
ward, the subject and recipient of those new and pow- 
erful influences descending into that world from the 
Lord, out of heaven. This is a most important fact. 
For, whereas, mankind had before been in close con- 
tact with, and surrounded invisibly by evil influences, 
they now became at once surrounded by good influ- 
ences in their stead. It was like removing a dense 
shade from over a garden, and letting in the sunshine 
upon it. It inaugurated a new period of growth. In- 
stead of darkness, light was now shed into the human 
understanding ; while alongside the love for what was 
old, there came to be insinuated a desire also for 
something new and better. 

A little reflection will teach us that these circum- 
stances are important, and calculated to work great 
changes in human affairs. At first sight, many might 
be led to imagine that such a fresh outpouring of the 
18* 



210 



LECTURE X. 



spirit of life from above, must produce good, and only 
good, continually. But a second thought will serve 
to correct this impression. With the well disposed, 
such, indeed, would be the result. But the world's 
elements are mixed, while the human mind is in free- 
dom. Therefore, with the morally careless and the 
evil, the results would appear to be evil. The effect 
is to light up the various fires of the human hear!, and 
set them all burning with an intenser glow ; while a 
superintending Providence is shaping the general flow 
in a favorable direction. 

• As already several times remarked, this new order 
of things commenced just after the middle of the last 
century. According to Emanuel Swedenborg, who 
was the seer prepared and appointed by the Lord to 
witness and report the event, the Judgment was ac- 
complished in the year 1757. He described, from the 
Word, the changes which then took place in the spir- 
itual world, mentioned the new conditions into which 
the human mind had been brought by them, and spoke 
of the results that would follow. He averred that 
they marked a New Era, and would inaugurate a New 
Age in the world's affairs. 

Every year since has borne testimony to the truth 
of his words. The history of Christendom, from that 
day to this, has been one steady and increasing con- 
firmation of them. The general mind soon began to 
feel the stimulus of the new influences pouring down 
thus invisibly upon it, and an age of activity com- 
menced. The wheels of history received a new im- 
pulse, and everything began to move with greater ra- 
pidity. Men began to grow restless under the old 
order and under the old restraints, while the massea 



DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 211 

everywhere began to foment. As liberty had been 
proclaimed in the spiritual world, so liberty soon became 
a watchword in this. The elements which resulted in 
our Revolution began immediately to work ; while 
the Declaration of American Independence in 1776, 
was only an echo in the natural world, of that gener- 
al Declaration of Freedom which had already gone 
forth in the world of spirits, nearly twenty years be- 
fore. 

The movement was not long in crossing to Europe. 
The great French Revolution soon followed ; an event 
in which we see the effects of the Judgment descend- 
ing into this world with prodigious force, operating 
upon the corrupt and corrupting materials which they 
found here. Witness the general overturn in Europe 
which followed; — the wars, lasting a generation or 
more, of the Consulate and the Empire. Everywhere 
the old order opposed the new, but the new order was 
bound to make itself felt, and European society — 
throughout its entire length and breadth — was not 
left as it was found at the beginning. When peace 
came. Progress had been made. The ancient spell of 
conservatism had been broken up. And from that 
day to this. Liberalization is the single word which is 
written on every important political movement that 
has taken place in Christendom. 

As we approach our own time, the prospect con- 
tantly brightens. The day dawns with continually in- 
creasing fulness. And the conflicts which we witness 
to-day going on in the world are only parts of that 
general war waged between that old order, — every- 
where going out, and the new order, — everywhere 
coming in. 



212 



LECTUEE X. 



The more faithfully we study the history of the last 
hundred years in the light of these disclosures the 
more shall we realize the truth of these observations, 
and the more remarkable will the actual developments 
of the age be seen to be. The human mind under the 
strong stimulus of these influences, has more than 
doubled its energy in every department of action. 
Thought has been wide awake, and the human will 
seems as if gifted with a new motive power. There 
is not a field of employment that has not been revo- 
lutionized. 

The world^s philosophy has been rewritten. For 
all our modern systems date from Dr. Reid, who be- 
gan to publish in 1^63. He was followed by Immanuel 
Kant, the leader of the great modern movement in 
German thought, since whom have come the various 
metaphysical systems of Germany and France, of 
Great Britian and America. 

The world^s science has been reorganized. The 
larger part of that great body of accumulated fact and 
systematized knowledge known as ''Modern Induc- 
tive Science,^' has been the creation of this period. 
For most of the branches of which it is composed, 
were not before pursued as distinct objects of study ; 
and those which were, have been entirely metamor- 
phosed, having one and all been reconsidered and re- 
constructed on new principles from cap to foundation 
etone. The field of knowledge has been widened and 
extended on every side. A spirit of the most intense 
inquiry has started up and come into exercise, which 
has pushed human researches out into fields not before 
dreamed of, leaving no stone unturned, — no region 
unexplored, and no monument of the past or present 



DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 213 



unexamined, that conld add facts to our knowledge, 
or throw any light upon nature, or upon man, his his- 
tory or his relations. Readers of history have fre- 
quently remarked the strong contrast in this respect, 
between this age and those which have gone before. 
It is like a man who has started from comparative 
stupor, to full wakefulness. The words of the prophet 
with respect to these times, are literally fulfilled ; — 
that men should run to and fro, and that knowledge 
should be increased. 

A great characteristic difference now observed is, 
that science and knowledge have become democ- 
ratized, so to speak ; they now belong to the masses, 
diffusing their light and finding their votaries among 
the people ; and not, as before, shut up in schools or 
cloisters, and confined to the few. 

The world's practical Art has been reorganized. 
The idea of applying science to art has come into 
vogue. The Steam-Engine has been invented : the 
Cotton Manufacture has been installed, — two things 
that have revolutionized the world's industry, and the 
world's commerce. It would be tedious and useless 
to cite here the achievements in this department ; — 
tedious, on account of the vast multitude of changes 
and inventions ; and useless, because all men know 
and acknowledge the unparalleled improvements of 
the age. The whole face of society has been changed 
by them, having been transformed into a new and 
better social or domestic order through their means. 

It would be an interesting and instructive exercise, 
did time allow, and were this the place, to follow this 
subject more in detail, giving events, and names, and 
dates, to show how strikingly the whole movement 



2U 



LECTUKE X. 



falls into place around the New Church ideas, and how 
fully the developments conform to and confirm New 
Church principles. But other parts of the subject 
claim more our attention. 

The Christian Church, — where does that stand in 
this great movement ? — and how has it been afiected 
by this new tide of influences ? 

The Church is the Lord's first object of care in the 
.world, and it is for the sake of the church, — for its 
improvement in purity of life, and its extension among 
men,— that these great changes have been inaugu- 
rated. Let us see, therefore, whether the churches 
of Christendom show any signs of this New Age. It 
might rationally be expected that they would. And 
on examination we shall find that it is so. Those new 
spiritual influences, descending from God out of 
heaven, were intended to aff^ect most the religious 
state and character of men, and we shall discover 
that it is in the religious life of the world that they 
have produced the most remarkabfe and manifest 
effects. 

There had been provision made by the Lord for the 
introduction of the new order. The Protestant Eef- 
ormation had come, to make way and room for it ; 
while the printing press, the mariner's compass, and 
. the invention of gunpowder, had been given. These 
lay there as three great instrumentalitfes to be used 
by the spirit of the New Age, as soon as it should 
awake and lay hands on them. The first, for the pro- 
mulgation of the truth or the shedding forth of light ; 
the second, for carrying it abroad to men, and its dif- 
fusion to the world's end ; and the last, for the exe- 
cution of judgment, in the destruction and removal of 
the old order of things. 



DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 215 

Later, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, 
there had been raised up a set of men, contemporaries 
of Swedenborg% who performed an important collat- 
eral work. We have already referred to some of 
them. It was the age of Whitefield, and the Wesleys, 
and Bishop Butler, and Jonathan Edwards. A great 
number of very important though less prominent 
names might be mentioned. At the same time the 
New Church Writings were going through the press, 
these men were preaching and publishing. Thus the 
attention of* the Christian world was called, just at 
that period, in a remarkable manner, to the considera- 
tion of theological and religious themes. It was the 
recognized date of a new era in church history and in 
systematic theology ; and has been by many writers 
significantly called ''The Great Awakening ; by 
others, The great Protestant Revival.^' 

Thus was the popular mind Providentially prepared 
for the reception of new influences and new ideas in 
religion. Since then the movement has gone con- 
stantly and rapidly forward. Blindness, prejudice, 
narrowness, bigotry, and the persecuting spirit have 
constantly receded. The liberalization of thought has 
everywhere made itself felt, until at length it has be- 
come predominant. No one who has not made it his 
special study, can conceive the change that has been 
wrought. It is now as if we were living in a new re- 
ligious world from that which then existed. A '' new 
earth has, indeed, in many respects, already been 
created. 

As we have before constantly remarked, the power 
— the spiritual power — of this New Age flows in 
through the Bible ; the spiritual meaning of the Divine 



216 



LECTURE X. 



Word has been expounded, and is now in use in the 
world of spirits. And thus the Word is now endowed 
with more power in the natural world than it pos- 
sessed before. A feeling, or tacit perception of this 
fact, is a marked feature of these new times. New 
attention has been called to the Bible. The churches, 
not long after the period we have mentioned, began 
to feel that they owed new duties in this respect ; 
good men kept the subject agitated, until Bible socie- 
ties were formed, and a widespread and systematic 
effort grew up for its diffusion ; the design being 
formed at length of giving it to the entire people, 
high and low, rich and poor. This was an entirely 
new idea, — this of the universal diffusion of the Bible 
among all classes, as a systematic effort, by means of 
the great organizations ; it had no existence in former 
times. The masses formerly did not have the Bible. 
And we read that, on one occasion, when, in the year 
1808, the British and Foreign Bible Society sent a 
supply of thirty thousand copies to one of the Welch 
cities, forwarding them thither in carts drawn by 
oxen, the inhabitants, hearing that the Bibles were 
coming, left their occupations, and went out in 
crowds to meet them ; and, taking off the oxen, drew 
the carts into the city themselves, amidst great re- 
joicings. 

Some negroes on the West coast of Africa, having 
been taught to read by some Englishmen on the coast, 
for mercantile purposes, accidentally fell in with two 
or three leaves of a worn-out Bible, and became so in- 
terested that they took means to send to England for 
a complete copy ; the order resulted in the establish- 
ment of a mission, which ever since has carried the 
Word to the inhabitants of that region. 



DESCEA'T OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 217 



A missionary started from England and landed in 
Southern Africa, without definite purpose, only that 
he must go somewhere and preach the gospel. With 
a few guides, he took his way due northward into the 
wilds. Getting beyond the bounds of civilization, 
they pitched their tent late one afternoon, and had not 
long been making their preparations for the night, 
when a party of negroes or Bushmen came and en- 
camped near them. For fear of unpleasant conse- 
quences, the missionary and his guides removed their 
camp some distance. In the morning they learned 
that their neighbors were a negro chief and a hundred 
or more of followers, going down to the coast to learn- 
about the Bible. The chief told them that in his 
country he had heard about the " Great Word,'' and 
that he was going down to get some one who could 
teach it to his people. Of course, the missionary 
went home with the chief, carrying the Word with 
him. 

And when missionaries have arrived for the first 
time on some of the islands of the sea, they have 
found a marvellous state of preparation in the untu- 
tored mind, that had preceded them in the w^ork. 

These instances might be multiplied to an almost 
indefinite extent ; gohig to show that since the middle 
of the last century, there has been an influx, from an 
invisible source, into the common mind, determining 
it towards spiritual things, and creating in it an appe- 
tency for the Bible and its truths. 

The growth of the modern missionary spirit belongs 
to this period. This idea, now so strongly possessed 
by the Christian Denominations, of evangelizing for- 
eign nations, — of sending the gospel to the heathen, 
19 



218 



LECTUEE X. 



IS a thought germinated by this New Age ; it did not 
exist before. Foreign missions, with Protestants, had 
gone into abeyance. The same is true of almost 
every rehgious, moral, and philanthropic enterprise 
that can be named. They have all sprun- into exist- 
ence since that time. Home missioiis, Sunday 
Schools, Tract societies. Temperance societies revi 
vals of religion, the abolition of the African slave- 
trade. Public charities, indeed, existed before but 
smce then in Protestant countries, they have assumed 
new hfe and new proportions, have multiplied beyond 
measure, and devoted themselves to a much wider 
range of objects. The career of Howard the philan- 
thropist, began about 1760, and, as all are well aware 
his life and efforts mark a new era in care for the dis- 
tressed and afflicted, in the treatment of prisoners and 
the insane, and in the history of all benevolent and phil- 
anthropic operations. Society everywhere, morally 
wears a new aspect. This modern idea which all men 
now have so distinctly developed in their minds 
about the "progress of the race," is new ; men did not 
use to believe in progress. 

Thus, on looking round us, and survevin- the de- 
velopments of the last hundred years, th; pi^sence of 
this New Age stands everywhere confessed AH 
men feel it. All men see it. All men speak of it It has 
become a theme of statesmen and orators, of poets 
and essayists, of historians and philosophers of 
preachers, and of moralists. Some of the most 'bril- 
liant articles of our leading Reviews for the last twen- 
ty years, have been devoted to it, -in sketching its 
character, and pointing out its results. With aU 



DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 219 

these there is a general agreement as to the date of 
its commencement. We have seen it called, in print, 

a new dispensation/^ by writers who evidently knew 
nothing whatever of our New Church views. 

But no single mind could do justice to the theme ; 
no single pen could narrate and characterize all the 
results ; they branch forth in too many directions, 
and embrace too large a body of developments. No 
former age has been so crowded with magnificent 
events. No other five centuries the world has ever 
seen, have witnessed so many changes, or involved 
so much real history, as have been compressed within 
this single one. 

Some historical essayists had remarked, in view of 
these mighty changes in society, that ours is now 
no longer the same world to live in that it was for- 
merly to which a philosophical Christian observer 
of our own time and country, has significantly added, 
— '^No, nor the same world to tJiink in that it was 
before. Here he struck the key of a true note. It 
is no longer the same world to think in that our fath- 
ers had. The developments of science, the discovery 
of the laws of nature, and the accumulation of knowl- 
edge, have been such as to surround us with new con- 
ditions in this respect. Many things formerly be- 
lieved and preached, could not be believed to-day, if 
preached. While many other things, almost impossi- 
ble to be believed then, because their rational ground 
was unknown, can not only be believed now, but are 
seen to be rational and true. Things before deemed 
to be impossible, have become, not only possible, but 
common. 

This is of the Divine Providence. This modification 



220 



LECTURE X. 



of thought is a purpose the Lord had in view. There 
was a new unfolding of Divine Truth to be delivered, 
a new body of Doctrine to be given and taught. And 
this modification of the thought, and of the intellectual 
conditions of the race, is to prepare the human mind 
for the reception of those Doctrines, and for a higher 
stage of thinking on religious subjects. 

We have already mentioned the publication of the 
New Church Writings about the middle of the last 
century. This publication proceeded from the year 
1H9 to 1111, In those Writings are contained three 
distinct, important classes of Truths. 

1. The Key and Explanation of the spiritual mean- 
ing of Scripture, and its application to the regenera- 
tion of man ; — 

2. The system of Heavenly Doctrines, revealed from 
the Word, — and 

3. The Disclosure of the states of the Departed, or 
of life in the spiritual state of existence. 

The publication of this voluminous, profound, and 
complete Body of Kevealed Doctrine, was the birth of 
the ''Man Child ^' into the natural world, or the world 
of men. It was the bringing forth and promulgation 
here of the same body of truths which we read of in 
the twelfth chapter, as having been brought forth and 
promulgated by the church in the spiritual world. It 
is this system of Doctrines, as well as the Church to 
be instituted and constituted by them, which is de- 
scribed in the twenty-first chapter, under the figure of 
the New Jerusalem; Jerusalem being not only the 
common prophetic name for the church, as is general- 
ly acknowledged, but where it is spoken of as a city ; 
for the church in one especial characteristic, and that 



DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 221 

is, with respect to the Doctrine which she embodies 
and teaches. 

These Doctrines have been taught in the world about 
one hundred years. But how different now the scene 
from that presented when they were introduced! 
Religious thought has since been revolutionized. 

They were sent out through the press and distrib- 
uted over the world, especially to the universities and 
seats of learning. Since then, ideas from them, per- 
colating through society, have become the property 
of the masses. The world^s best opinion has been 
constantly nearing the New Church system. Move- 
ments have been based upon single ideas borrowed 
from it. The modifications of doctrine in many 
churches are fragments taken from this system. Its 
full, clear, and distinct affirmation of universal infant 
salvation, though not yet introduced into many of the 
standards, is nevertheless, by common consent, now 
received as the general doctrine of the churches. Its 
doctrine of the Resurrection, entirely disclaimed at 
first, is now the belief (may we not say ?) of half the 
people, despite the teaching of the standards. 

Nearly all the Denominations are divided into two 
parties, — high church and low church, — broad 
church and narrow church, — old school and new 
school ; that is, a party of conservatism, holding on to 
the old, and a party of progress, looking forward to 
the new. Of course, when men attempt to work out 
their own progress, they will go in many devious 
ways, but on examination it will generally be found 
that the modifications brought in by these processes 
tend in the direction of the New Church, and are 
qualified by some fragments of thought borrowed, 
19* 



222 



LECTURE X. 



perhaps unsuspectingly, from her system. In the 
same way new denominations have sprung up, and old 
sects have divided. 

The quickened activity of religious thought has 
culminated in the successive formation of new Denom- 
inations, with varying and divergent views. The 
whole history of Methodism, as well as the develop- 
ment of Universalism and Unitg^rianism, is comprised 
within this period ; not to mention numerous others, 
many of them of recent date, still constantly running 
into subdivisions, ending, in not a few cases, in the 
formation of strange and extravagant sects. 

Thus the thought of the age is advancing to meet 
the New Jerusalem. Pulpits do not preach as they 
did fifty years ago ; nor as they did twenty-five years 
ago : no, nor as they did even ten years ago. The 
mind of the Christian Public is being providentially 
led, in a great measure unconsciously to itself, by 
slow degrees, and yet steadily and constantly, oVer, 
from the ground of the Old Age to the ground of the 
New. 

We do not believe this movement of opinion will be 
arrested ; we believe it will go on, and increase, and 
become accelerated, until the new Views are generally 
adopted ; until the now divided Christian Church will 
come to stand upon a common platform of Doctrine, 
and be united in a common bond of life. For we read 
that They shall see eye to eye when Jehovah shall 
bring again Zion.^^ 

In the twenty-first chapter, as we have said, under 
the emblem of a city, there is described in prophetic 
language, this great and perfect Body of Heavenly 
Doctrine. As the previous Ages of the Church are 



DESCENT OF THE KEW JERUSALEM. 223 

symbolized in DaniePs Image hj different metals, 
more and less precious, so this New Jerusalem Age is 
frequently described as the age of gems or precious 
stones ; as the Age in which the church will have her 
" foundations'' of ''sapphires/' her ''windows of 
agates/' her "gates of carbuncles, and all" her 
" borders of precious stones/' This is to denote the 
superior order of the truths now revealed, and the 
greater degree of light now diffused ; for it is added in 
the prophet, "all thy children shall be taught of the 
Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children ; " 
— truths of higher value, of more perfect beauty, of 
greater clearness, and in larger variety than ever 
known before. So here, the holy city is described 
with twelve foundations, composed of as many dis- 
tinct gems, —as "garnished," indeed, "with all 
manner of precious stones/' Her "light" is spoken 
of as being "like unto a stone most precious, even 
like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." This is to sym- 
bolize the spiritual sense of the Divine Word, which 
is the peculiar foundation of the New Jerusalem. All 
through the Scripture, the truth of the church is com- 
pared to a rock, and to stones, — a " tried stone," " a 
foundation stone," &c. but always to stones of com- 
mon durability and hardness, to the opaque rock, as 
we commonly see it. Now this is a figure of Divine 
Truth, for the most part, as we see it in the letter of 
the Word. But the gems are employed to symbolize 
the same letter illustrated and enlightened by the 
spiritual meaning, — the same dark literal expression 
with the light of heaven poured upon it and through 
it, and understood according to the angelic idea. 
These truths, filling the Scripture from beginning to 



224 



LECTUEE X. 



end, constitute the foundations of the New Church, 
for thej are the very truths of which her doctrines are 
composed. 

Her wall, great and high/' is the array of defen- 
sive truths, drawn from the Scripture, by which she 
is surrounded on all sides, and protected ; by means 
of which she can give a good, correct, and rational 
reply to every objection that can be urged against her 
from any quarter. And can protect and deliver men 
from their own errors and false notions, so far as they 
are willing to be delivered from them. 

Her gateSj looking every way, and composed of 
magnificent pearls, are her introductory truths ; the 
reasonable considerations, with which the Lord provi- 
dentially endows her, which lead men to take notice 
of her system of Doctrines, to examine them, to con- 
clude in favor of them, and at length to follow them. 
These truths, pure, clear, numerous, valuable, and at- 
tractive to every truly Christianized and rational 
mind, are the ''gates through which men enter her 
precincts, and begin to abide in her palaces. 

Her streets are the ways of life which her truths 
point out ; the precepts of purity and holiness, the 
precepts of righteousness and justice, the precepts of 
repentance and departure from evil, the precepts of 
Supreme love towards God, and corresponding love 
towards man. Ways of life which, if followed, restore 
the ''golden age,'' leading men into even more than 
the primeval purity and charity ; for the practice of 
heavenly goodness now, is accomplished under a 
greater fulness of light, being penetrated by the ra- 
tional understanding of a larger supply of revealed 
truth. Hence we read that " the street of the city 
was of pure gold, as it were transparent glass. '^ 



DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 225 



That this city ''had no need of the sun or of the 
moon to shine in it/' does not mean that men will no 
longer need those material, visible luminaries, for it is 
prophetic language that is here used, and men will al- 
ways require these ; but it means that the men who 
shall come to and be willing to walk by the light of 
the New Jerusalem, will no longer require the com- 
mon worldly means of mental illumination. They will 
no longer need the light that comes from selfish love, 
nor the light that comes from worldly love. They 
will not have to run after the maxims, the sayings, 
the doctrines, or the speculations of men for guidance 
in spiritual things, or to be taught how to think on 
divine, heavenly, and spiritual subjects. They will 
be delivered, too, from following their own vague, 
wayward, fallacious, and insufficient notions about 
such things. For the Lord, through His Word, will 
be their light, teaching them its spiritual and heaven- 
ly meaning, and shedding down a heavenly illustra- 
tion into their minds. 

In the twenty-second chapter we read, principally, 
a description of the effects that will gradually follow 
the adoption and practice of the truths of the spiritual 
sense of the Word. And we see there a most perfect, 
beautiful, and happy state of life unfolded. A perfect 
paradise is depicted, — holy, pure, and peaceful. 
This is the state of things, the condition of society, 
which Christianity, as unfolded in the Doctrines of the 
New Jerusalem, is calculated to produce ; and a state 
of society which will be produced just in the degree 
that these doctrines are received into the life, and 
honestly and thoroughly carried out in practice. 



226 



LECTURE X. 



They are meant for the world, and they are sent by 
the Lord in this latter day to reform, and regenerate, 
and reorganize the world ; and they will be endowed 
with power from on high to effect it. They loill reach 
men, because they are the Truth ; they will reach 
their understandings^ insuring belief ; and then they 
will reach their hearts, insuring love ; and their wills, 
insuring obedient practice. 

The Bible begins with man in Eden, surrounded by 
the emblems and conditions of an innocent, unspotted 
state of life. This was the infancy of the race. It 
follows him in his decline and falling away, like a 
prodigal son leaving his Father's house, through all 
his weary wanderings in sin, — the long and devious 
wilderness journey of the world's historic ages, until 
at length, it shows him to us, in prophetic visions re- 
covered, the lost found, brought back to order and 
duty, restored to more than his Eden state, with the 
Tree of Life standing in the midst of the Garden, im- 
bued with the repentant innocence of wisdom, more 
trustworthy and more enduring than the innocence of 
childhood. 

What a picture is here opened to us of the world's 
future! No catastrophe. No ''end of the world;" 
no departure of this visible framework ; no destruc- 
tion of mankind. But the earth given to man as his 
perpetual inheritance, while in the mortal body ; to 
endure forever, the seminary in which he is to be in- 
structed for heaven, and where the human race can 
devote the vigor of its manhood to the service of the 
Creator ; each generation, as it rises into being and 
passes on towards the immortal world, being prepared 
for and becoming the inheritor of eternal life ! 



APPENDIX, 



NOTES TO THE LECTURES. 

Note A, Lecture L 

The heavenly or spiritual meaning within the natural mean- 
ing, everywhere, in the historical as well as other parts, &c. 
This assertion is meant to apply to only the really prophetic 
Books, and not to our entire English Bible. We use the term 
prophetic, however, in its broadest sense, including the writings 
of all the prophets or holy seers who received the Word of 
tlie Lord" in open vision. On examination, these will be 
found to be — the Books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, 
Kings, Psalms, the other prophets, in the Old Testament, and 
the Gospels, with the Book of Revelation, in the New Testa- 
ment. 

It is not meant to assert, therefore, that the other Books of 
the Canon — as the Book of Esther, or Proverbs — have any 
deeper meaning in them than the one expressed in the letter. 
So, with the Apostolical Epistles, — while they are deeply 
imbued with the heavenly or spiritual element, their authors 
writing under influences from on high, it is believed that their 
whole meaning is conveyed by the simple grammatical sense. 
These latter books may truly be called "inspired," according 
to the common or general theological sense of that term, but 
their inspiration is different in mode and kind, from the 
former ; they are not immediate Divine utterances. 



228 



APPENDIX. 



Note B, Lecture 11. 

The Spiritual Meaning of Scripture will be found drawn out 
at length in the three following works by Emanuel Sweden, 
borg : The Arcana Celestia, thirteen volumes ; The Apocalypse 
Revealed, two volumes; The Apocalypse Explained, five 
volumes. In these works Scripture is compared with Scripture 
and the meaning evolved in clear light by the declarations of 
the Word itself. The strength of demonstration attending 
these explanations can be realized only by a careful and candid 
and at the same time prayerful perusal of those writings them- 
selves. And to this perusal we would earnestly invite the 
mtelhgent and truth-loving religious mind of tlus age. 

Note C, Lecture IK. 

The influences from the world of spirits stupefying the minds 
of men. For a vivid historical picture of some of these effects 
drawn by an author writing from a different stand-point from 
that of the Christian Church, see Mr. Buckle's two chapters o, 
the state of things in Spain and Scotland, respectively, — -he 
one a Catholic, the other a Protestant country, during the i ist 
part of the seventeenth, and the first part of the eighteej T 
century. 



H I 



